Parking spots are hard to come by in a snowy Chicago neighborhood, and resident Adam Selzer is using a novel method to save his spot — freezing pairs of pants and standing them up on the street like traffic cones, WBBM-TV reported. "Soak a pair, put outside. In about 20 minutes you can form them to shape, and in another 20 they're solid," Selzer posted on Twitter. Next, Selzer is planning to perfect a frozen shirt. "We'll see if this works," he said.
The great earbud migration
Bradford Gauthier of Worcester, Mass., had trouble swallowing when he woke up on Feb. 2, but he went about his day after drinking some water. Later, "I tried to drink a glass of water again and couldn't," he said, and that's when he realized one of the AirPods he sleeps with at night was missing and "felt a distinct blockage in the center of my chest," he said. KVEO reported that it didn't take doctors in the emergency room long to discover the AirPod lodged in Gauthier's esophagus. An emergency endoscopy removed it and Gauthier went home feeling much better.
Joy ride a game-changer
Neighbors in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., called police on Feb. 8 after witnessing an unidentified man apparently take a joy ride on an excavator parked in the street, knocking it into power lines and making a getaway on a bicycle. WPLG-TV reported the incident resulted in every sports fan's worst nightmare: a power outage just before the Super Bowl. Crews from Florida Power & Light had the power back on by halftime.
A different Presidents' Day sale
Boston-based RR Auction held a special online Presidents' Day sale of presidential artifacts, which included locks of George and Martha Washington's hair, John F. Kennedy's Harvard cardigan sweater and the pen Warren G. Harding used to officially end U.S. involvement in World War I, reported the Associated Press. The auction featured around 300 items, said company spokesman Mike Graff. Last year, the company sold a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair wrapped in a bloodstained telegram about his 1865 assassination for $81,000.
She's quite the character
Andrea Belcher of Surrey, England, was looking for a way to have a little fun during COVID-19 lockdowns last year and had the idea of dressing up in a ballgown to take out the trash. Since then, Sky News reported, she has dressed up each week as a famous personality or fictional character, including Darth Vader, Marge Simpson and Wilma Flintstone, even recruiting the family dog to play Toto to her Dorothy. "Everything is a bit miserable at the moment," Belcher said. "So it's nice to have a little bit of silliness, a little bit of craziness, and to make people smile."
Leave it to Florida
Instagramer Matt Shirley of Los Angeles conducted an informal survey among his more than 300,000 followers, asking them which state they hate most, the Asbury Park Press reported. From the 2,500 responses, he determined that, among the expected regional rivalries, New Jersey hates every other state and Florida hates ... Florida. The Sunshine State was the only one to choose itself as most-hated, with four-fifths of respondents agreeing. "I live in Florida, have my whole life, and would not hesitate to unironically put that as my answer," one survey participant wrote.
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