Slow News Day

In a recent edition of The Improper Bostonian, comedian Steven Wright was interviewed and asked the following question: “Would you consider yourself neurotic, and does comedy come from a dark place?”

His answer: “I’m extremely neurotic, and personally, I think comedy should come from Rhode Island.”

Well, it does, of course. Frequently. Ever since wampum, slavery and rum-running, comedy has been our stock in trade. Consider the following news items from last year:

The owner of a cursing cockatoo from Warwick is appealing a noise ordinance fine after her neighbor complained that the bird spews vulgar phrases and profanity all day. What makes this a Rhode Island story is that the neighbor lives with the cockatoo owner's ex-husband.

A dog survived a ride from Massachusetts to Rhode Island after being hit by a car and getting stuck in its grille. The driver of a Toyota Camry saw the dog crossing the road in Taunton, Mass., and braked, but felt and heard nothing and assumed it somehow escaped harm once it disappeared from view. He drove 50 miles per hour down Route 44 to East Providence, when he was finally flagged down by another motorist, who told him that he had a dog in his grille. The white poodle-bichon mix survived with minor injuries and no broken bones, by clinging onto the bumper. What makes this a Rhode Island story is contemplating how many motorists and pedestrians the driver must've passed during the 11-mile journey that didn't notice a live dog hanging on for dear life to the front of a speeding Camry.

In North Providence, four policeman are being investigated for making five boys do pushups on the side of the road as their punishment for damaging a mailbox. What makes this a Rhode Island story is the cops never even once considered making the delinquents follow up with crunches.

The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations finally eliminated a law from the books that, once enacted in 1989, instantly made all Rhode Islanders criminals (instead of making us earn it). The law, as written, prevented any Rhode Islander from fibbing on the Internet. So any e-mails, online chat discussions, Facebook posts, Tweets and, yes, even blog posts since then containing a single white lie could have resulted in prosecution. What makes this a Rhode Island story is that lawmakers originally thought the measure would stop fraudsters, con artists and scammers, which make up the bulk of our population. Those same lawmakers knew they had failed when they tried online dating and realized that nobody looks like their picture.

And then there was this Only in Rhode Island story from 2012:

In December, a husband and wife from Lincoln each got arrested for DUI on the same night. The woman was stopped in Cranston. The husband was pulled over in Lincoln for a motor vehicle violation on his way to pick her up.

What was the funniest news story ever to come out of Rhode Island?