Bottom of the News… Friday, April 3, 2009

Good morning my fellow Rotarians. You can always find the top of the news just about anywhere, but today we have some REAL bottom of the news stories…

Cereal Boxes and Phone Sex
HALFWAY, Md. – An Oregon company has ordered new packaging for its Peace Cereal after a typo on the box sent callers to a phone sex line instead of the cereal maker's 800 number.

Instead of reaching their corp headquarters, callers were greeted by a recorded voice asking, "Do you love sex? ... Isn't that why you called?" Spokeswoman Elissa Brown said the cereal company immediately ordered new packaging when the mistake was discovered in December and new boxes started shipping out in early March. (I can’t believe it took so long…)

However, as of last week, 13 varieties of the cereal were still on shelves at one Halfway, Md., grocery store, including seven varieties bearing the incorrect telephone number. And local store officials noted that the cereal was becoming very popular with teenage boys!

Salem Woman Accused of Driving 103 MPH!
SALEM, Ore. – A woman was accused of driving 103 mph with her 10-year-old grandson last week while on leave from her job.

The 53-year-old driver was arrested Sunday on charges of reckless driving and reckless endangerment of a minor. Police said she told them she was teaching her grandson about the dangers of speeding, telling him not to drive as she was about to.

The woman was placed on leave March 16 from her job, but the agency she worked for would not give reason for her leave or how her charges and arrest would affect her future employment.

As it turns out, the woman has been a trainer since 1988 for the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Safety Services division.

Gulp! Laughing Man Swallows Scissors
(April 1, 2009) China -- After eating a meal, a Chinese man was using a four-inch pair of nail scissors to clean his teeth when one of his friends cracked an April Fool’s joke. While breaking out in hysterical laughter, the man inhaled the scissors and they slid down his throat.

London's Daily Mail reports that Kong Lin, 27, tried to cough up the scissors, but the points got stuck in his epiglottis. Ouch!

Lin was rushed to a hospital where surgeons extracted the scissors in about 30 minutes. The docs couldn't use anything stronger than a local anesthetic because knocking him out completely would have relaxed his throat, allowing the scissors to move deeper. Wow, talk about a badly timed joke.

'Bailout' hits Domino's for FREE Pizzas
CINCINNATI – Domino's Pizza earlier this week gave away thousands of free pizzas by mistake. It was caused by a never-used promotion that a website customer stumbled upon.

Tim McIntyre, spokesman for Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Domino's, said Wednesday that the company had prepared an Internet coupon for an ad campaign that was considered in December but never activated.

McIntyre said somebody discovered that the code word "bailout" was good for a free medium pizza ordered online. That information quickly spread Monday night on the internet, until the code was finally deactivated early Tuesday morning.

Domino's in Cincinnati gave away more than 600 free pizzas from 14 stores in just three hours that night. Domino's corporate officials promised to reimburse all of their franchise owners for the pizzas they gave away… system wide Dominos gave away over 11,000 ”bailout” pizzas in just under 8 hours.

And there you have it… fact is more fun than fiction, our Bottom of the News this Friday, April 3rd, 2009! ###