Motel cleaning crews are used to finding things left behind in rooms, like a robe or phone charger. But when the cleaners arrived at a room at the Pine Rivers motel in Cheboygan, Mich., they found something completely unexpected, the Detroit Free Press reported on March 14. They looked under the bed and found Wally, “a real friendly gator.” The motel manager said he’d had no idea that the alligator was in the room. He called the guest, who said he was “taking Wally to elementary schools and showing him to children,” but when he got up that morning, he couldn’t find the reptile and assumed he’d gotten out. “You couldn’t really miss it,” the manager said. “It’s about 3 feet long.” The owner drove back and picked up Wally that evening.
I’m not dead yet
In Kardzhali, Bulgaria, the Arda Kardzhali soccer team observed a moment of silence for a fallen former teammate, striker Petko Ganchev, 78, on March 16. As touching as the gesture was, the BBC reported, Ganchev was in fact alive and well. Ganchev said he returned home as the match was beginning, and his wife greeted him crying: “Petko, Petko, they announced on TV that you have died!” Ganchev called his former team to announce that he was, indeed, quite alive. The club issued a statement expressing “a huge apology” to Ganchev, adding: “We wish Petko Ganchev many more years of good health and to enjoy the success of Arda.”
Oops
A 50-year-old Detroit man tried to kill a cockroach by throwing his shoe at the pest, WKRC-TV reported on March 9. The loaded revolver he had hidden in his shoe fell to the floor and discharged, hitting the man in the foot. He was hospitalized and reported to be in stable condition. There is no word on the cockroach’s condition.
Dance party
Five men were taken into custody In Memphis, Tenn., on March 10 after they emerged from their car at a busy intersection and started twerking, WKRC-TV reported. Four of them danced around the vehicle, while a fifth danced on the hood, police said. Each was charged with obstruction of a highway or passageway. Four of them were released on their own recognizance. But the fifth, Jordan Smith, 19, had an outstanding warrant for vandalism and was fined $2,100.
Tourist trap
A couple of American tourists visiting Dublin, Ireland, for St. Patrick’s Day felt the wrath of the Irish after they tried to stiff a carriage driver, the Irish Sun reported on March 19. A video from the scene shows the driver chasing the two men after their horse-and-carriage ride. When he caught them, he whipped them with a stick and demanded, “Pay me now.” After several more strikes, one rider paid up. But the driver whipped them a few more times, to which one replies, “I’m sorry. We learned our lesson.”
Culinary creation
Jordi Roca, 46, chef and owner of the Michelin three-star restaurant El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, has created a “lit” dessert that sets diners back the equivalent of $362, the New York Post reported on March 12. For the pricey confection, Roca extracts the “essence” of old books by spreading their pages with “deodorized butter and (letting) it rest overnight so that it is impregnated with the smell of an old book.” Then he removes the butter with a spatula and dissolves it in alcohol, which evaporates and leaves “the perfume of an old book.” The resulting “liquor” is dropped onto a pudding and adorned with petals of torn pages of the book.
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