From the Files of the Incredibly Stupid (vol. 3)

Maybe we Americans do get a little carried away sometimes... America now has about 700 pet "aftercare" facilities, providing funeral services to the nation's companion animals, according to a September NBC News report. Oakey's, in Roanoke, Virginia, performs 800 to 900 pet cremations annually and provides about 20 customers a year with pet caskets, part of the estimated $53 billion America spends on pets (higher than the Gross National Products of more than 100 countries). The basic charge of Heartland Pet Cremation of St Louis is $275 for a private cremation, including a "basic" urn and memorial video slideshow. (For the more upscale, other facilities offer deluxe urns, taxidermy, freeze-drying pets and creating a synthetic diamond out of pet ashes.)

And you wonder why people don't answer their phones... Gareth Lloyd, 49, admitted that he is the one who made about 5,800 random phone calls (over a 90-day period -- averaging 64 a day!) to people just to listen to their reactions when he told them that his penis was stuck in a household object (usually jars or a vacuum cleaner). A Flintshire, Wales, court sentenced Lloyd only to probation (with restrictions on telephone use).

How about Chinese tonight? The Red Flower Chinese Restaurant in Williamsburg, Kentucky, was shut down by health authorities in September after a customer said he witnessed a roadkill deer carcass being wheeled through the dining room into the kitchen. The chief Whitley County health inspector said the owners did not appear to understand that they should not do that.

Watch out for those kids....A teenager, apparently fed up with his parents' commandeering of their home's basement for an elaborate marijuana-growing operation, turned the couple in in August. The Doylestown Township, Pennsylvania, couple (a chiropractor mom and software engineer dad) had sophisticated hardware and 18 plants. 

Daddy's Little Girl... Police in Athens, Georgia, searching for Homer Parham, 51, at his house in September, came up empty, and his wife said he wasn't there. But as officers were leaving, the couple's young daughter said, "Mommy locked Daddy in the closet." Parham was found hiding in a high-up crawl space.

Live Long and Prosper...