VILLAINOUS CHILD DEMOLISHES HOUSE OF CARDS

MESQUITE, NE - A carefully built house of cards was demolished today after Dylan Fields, 12, had a "villainous rampage." The card house was nearly completed by sister Jenny Fields, 10, and friend Laney Hutchison, 9. "Dylan came into the room and stared right at the card house," said Hutchison. "He wrung his hands and laughed a deep, billowing laugh." Fields had been wearing a pot on his head and a crude cape made from a blanket tied around his neck at the time, which he referred to as his "villain costume." Fields' parents grounded Dylan for two days after the incident. "They can lock me up," said Fields, "but they can never stop the fury of the black death ninja."

BIRTHDAY PARTY SUCCESSFUL DESPITE CLOWN ACT

WIFFLE, PA - Select Wiffle residents gathered to celebrate the birthday of Kelby Pfiffner, 14, last Tuesday. The party was held in the Pfiffner's backyard and was complete with balloons, a bouncing castle, cake, and a hired clown performer named 'Floppo.' According to testimonials from partygoers, the entire affair was a complete success except for the clown act. "The whole party seemed really childish," older brother Blake, 17, commented. "But most of the stuff turned out pretty cool. Well, except that stupid clown. He plain sucked." Floppo the Clown, also known as Jim Peters, 34, performed at the gathering with his unique style of slide whistle usage and periodic balloon animal crafting. "We hired this guy to put on some silly show," father Harold, 42, said. "But he was awful. He just jumped around with a stupid slide whistle and made only giraffes out of balloons. I don't think he knew how to make anything else. There's no way we'd ever hire him back." Peters had a different take on the party. "I think it was one of my best performances, and I'm sure I'll be back for little Kelby's fifteenth."

DRIVER'S ED INSTRUCTOR COOL

WIMBLEN, MI - Former student and present driving instructor for the 'Overdrive Motor Vehicle Institute' Rick Settel, 26, was looked on as 'cool' by students earlier this week. "Rick's just a cool guy," said student Mike Knoss, 15. "He talks about the Lions [football team], he wears a leather jacket, and he even says the 's' word some of the time." Compared with other instructors at the driving school, Settel is supposedly hard to beat. "I had Mr. Torrend on Monday," said student Keri Vahn, 16. "He sucks. He's all uptight and fat and only talks about driving when we're in the car. Rick [Settel] lets us call him by his first name and listen to the radio." Settel is aware of his rapport with the students and is pleased. "I just want the kids to know that driving safely is always cool," Settle commented, adding a thumb's up.

GROCERY LIST CONFUSING

JARAND, NC - Area resident Mark Kilborne, 23, visited the local grocery store with some difficulty last Wednesday. Sent witha list from roommates John Garguilo, 22, and Derek Byrd, 23, Mark was expected to find a number of items that varied in ease of understanding. "There was some stuff on the list," said Kilborne, "that just made no sense. Like 'unbleached cherry chip cookie dough.' I mean, do they really make that stuff?" Garguilo and Byrd attempted to remember writing the list with limited success. "Let's see, Tuesday night we were pretty drunk," commented Byrd, "and we had the half finished list from earlier that day. I think we added on to it at one point, but most of that night is a blur." Kilborne succeeded in procuring a few of the bizarre requests, including lime flavored salmon paste and berry-blue angel hair pasta. Garguilo and Byrd sampled their strange foods at the angered request of Kilborne but found nothing that tasted good.

WEDDING RUINED BY MULCH

WESTWATER, IA - The Hansen-Lieberch wedding held earlier this week at the Westwater's Sacred Blood of Christ Church was ruined by a shower of mulch. Father of the groom Leo Hansen, 57, suggested that throwing mulch as the couple hurriedly leaves the church would be an environmentally friendly alternative to rice or confetti. "It was all Leo's stupid idea," mother of the bride Sharon Lieberch, 51, said. "He thought that mulch was great because we wouldn't have to clean it up and it would help the lawn in front of the church. Sure, but now my little girl has a brown wedding dress. Thank a lot, Leo." a large mulch pile was gathered two days before the event, containing an estimated four hundred pounds. "So out of the church came Jim [Hansen] and Kelly [Lieberch]," said onlooker and cousin of the bride Pete Ellis, 14. "And they just got pelted with this brown dirt like stuff. Kelly started to cry and Jim thought it was a cruel joke. I just thought it was funny. What idiot came up with doing that, anyway?" Leo Lieberch was unavailable for comment.