Watercooler Stories

Fried mouse found in Frito Lay bag

HAVRE, Mont., July 23 (UPI) -- A Havre, Mont., resident said he would never buy barbecue potato chips again after finding a deep fried mouse in a bag of Lays K.C. Masterpiece chips.

Jack Hines, 66, discovered the deep fried mouse when he reached into a bag of Lays June 19, the Havre Daily News reported.

"I just about put it in my mouth," said Hines. "I was sitting there watching TV in the dark and I grabbed for three fingers of potato chips and I grabbed a mouse. It shook me up a bit and I threw it over my head."

After finding the rodent he contacted Gary and Leo's IGA in Havre, where he purchased the chips, to see what he should do about it.

"They told me to call the 800 number on the back of the bag," Hines said. "The lady that I talked to (from the 800 number) said they wanted the mouse and the bag of remaining chips that were left. They did ask me if I was feeling sick, and I said no I am not."

He said a Frito Lay representative is scheduled to come to Havre to pick up the mouse and bag of chips.

Swearing could get woman evicted

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 24 (UPI) -- A Canadian woman who learned to cuss living in the rugged Yukon territory faces eviction from a senior citizens complex in Halifax because of her swearing.

Mary Vaughan told The Globe and Mail in Toronto she does not cuss a lot. But she admitted she did swear at a staff member at the Almon Place facility under circumstances she thought were justifiable.

"He was being rude and interrupting and just being a pig," she said. "I just turned around very slowly and said 'Brian, (expletive) off.'"

Vaughan refused to apologize.

Managers say other tenants have complained about Vaughan, and she has committed other social sins, including gossiping and unauthorized use of the common room. But some residents support her and are planning a demonstration to show that.

Vaughan said when she first moved to the Yukon, known for its hard-drinking, salty-tongued men, she was so uncomfortable with profanity she practiced in front of a mirror.

"I would say it smiling, frowning and laughing," she said. "And I finally learned to say it without being offended."

Mom notices pregnancy after weight loss

CHESTER, England, July 24 (UPI) -- A British woman who weighed more than 300 pounds was warned she was putting her life at risk and could not become pregnant.

Monica Martinsen decided to take drastic action -- gastric bypass surgery. Eight months later, she was more than 100 pounds lighter and puzzled by the bulging stomach she could not seem to lose. She discovered she was about seven months pregnant.

"I must be the only woman in the country who has actually shrunk in weight during pregnancy," Martinsen told The Daily Mail. "Most women put on a few stone but I actually lost eight stone (112 pounds). I was twice as big when I first got pregnant than when I ended up giving birth."

Martinsen and her husband spent thousands of dollars on fertility treatments and were advised they failed because of her weight. Now the couple, who own a business in Chester, are the proud parents of Gustaf, who weighed in at 7 pounds.

His mother now weighs 126 pounds.

Popcorn a victim to rising ethanol prices

TROY, Ohio, July 24 (UPI) -- Movie theater owners like Ohio resident Alan Teicher are raising the cost of popcorn as the price of corn, some of which is used in ethanol, grows nationwide.

Teicher, a theater owner in Troy, Ohio, said he increased the cost of popcorn buckets in his movie venues in anticipation of another rise of popcorn manufacturing costs fueled by the booming ethanol industry, the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News said Tuesday.

"That's the largest increase I've ever heard of," Teicher said of a predicted 13 percent increase in the cost of popcorn. "We can only absorb so much of these increases before we pass them on to the customer."

The rise in ethanol costs directly leads to increased popcorn costs due to the fact that popcorn is always priced above the cost of field corn. But with field corn being used to make ethanol and the ethanol industry booming, farmers are increasing popcorn costs to meet that rising demand, the Daily News said.

Add to that that there's been more care needed to raise popcorn because of this summer's drought conditions throughout the region and the movie mainstay becomes a pricey commodity, the newspaper said.