Gorilla tells about toothache, then eats business card

Chuck Sheperd

Koko, the famous gorilla that was taught about a thousand words in American Sign Language, had recently been telling her handlers at her apartment at the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside, Calif., that her mouth hurt. It was only a toothache, but treatment would require her to be anesthetized, and the foundation decided to take advantage and give her a complete physical, with specialists volunteering to work on a “star.” Said Dr. David Liang of Stanford’s medical school, “Koko is less demanding” than other celebrities. Afterward, according to an Associated Press reporter, Koko met with her doctors and motioned one woman to come closer. The woman, awed by this brilliant animal, playfully handed Koko her business card, which Koko promptly ate.

People Who Need to Improve Their Excuses

(1) A 27-year-old man, arrested in July after allegedly trying to rob a Bank of America in Enid, Okla., told police he merely intended to help repay the national debt. (2) Thomas Pinckney, 18, charged with trespass in Tomah, Wis., in June after a woman awoke at night to find him holding her arm, told police that he had found the woman’s keys in her apartment door and was just trying to return them.

Smooth Reactions

In June, Nebraska’s Health and Human Services agency revoked the license of mental health therapist Robert Powers based on an incident in which he, after receiving a memo denying him his own key to the office supply cabinet, pulled out a .22-caliber handgun and fired several shots at the document.

• Clay Sullivan faced municipal charges in July resulting from his behavior as a parade marshal (on horseback) during the Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days; protesting the needless towing of a car along the parade route, Sullivan lassoed the tow truck driver and yanked him away from the car.

Questionable Judgments

In a federal court in Austin, Texas, in June, accused bank robber Adam Martin, 38, acting dramatically as his own lawyer, inexplicably called his brother Michael as a character witness even though he knew that Michael had already pleaded guilty to being Adam’s partner on four robberies. Adam asked if Michael had ever committed any crimes. Predictably (that is, to everyone except Adam), Michael responded, “Yeah. You were with me on four different bank robberies, Adam. You know that.”

People Different From Us

The legendarily devoted anthropologist John Peabody Harrington passed away in 1961 and left six tons of disorganized belongings in various warehouses, attics, basements, and even chicken coops. Most of the items were quixotic, inexplicable junk. However, according to a July 2004 Los Angeles Times report, there are also 1 million pages of valuable notes in nearly indecipherable code, which will require 20 years to organize and are strewn amongst, apparently, everything Harrington ever possessed, including dirty laundry, half-eaten food, and “a box of birds stored for 30 years without the benefit of taxidermy.” According to anthropologists, Harrington’s records are absolutely crucial because in some cases his work forms the only written evidence of certain Native American languages.

Almost All True

Three of these four things really happened, just recently. Are you cynical enough to figure out the made-up story? (Answer below.) (a) Identical male twins were revealed to be the registered owners of a Russian Web site devoted to nude photos of female Siamese twins. (b) A male nurse who had just pleaded guilty to lewd conduct with a handicapped boy was merely transferred by his employer (a California government agency) away from children, to work in its animal-care facility. (c) A distributor in Florida moved more than 10,000 units of a plastic toy premium (inside bags of candy) that depicts planes flying into the World Trade Center. (d) An Oregon couple pleaded guilty to several instances of punishing their two kids’ bad behavior by allowing their pit-bull dog to attack them.
Answer to Almost All True: (b), (c) and (d) are true.

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