Wherein I make a joke you will find totally tasteless, and repeat to everyone you know

Usually when I pick up a phone you have 2 seconds to speak or I hang up – I hate those automatic dialing machines. Just now I failed to hang up fast enough and got to speak all too briefly with a chirpy young woman with slurred California vowels. She told me that she thought children should have playgrounds instead of prisons, and she knew I felt the same way too. I said “Nope” and hung up.

An Austrian man cut off his finger and presented it, with his wedding ring still on, to his ex-wife, after what Reuters helpfully describes as “an acrimonious divorce.” “He was charged with harassment and assault” – assault? well, to be fair, you can’t say he didn’t lay a finger on her – “but told a preliminary court hearing that he did not regret cutting off the finger and did not plan to get married again.” That’s probably a good plan.