You can't make this up. 12 stories.
A 9-year-old pet iguana, about 3 feet long, spent a week on the loose in Spring Hill, Kansas, before turning up roughly 40 feet up a tree. Getting him down took a fire district crew and a catch pole on loan from the police department, which is two agencies for one lizard.
Grand Junction police posted video of an officer closing in on a loose guinea pig in a grassy field and wrapping it in a towel. The department credited a little teamwork and a lot of patience, and the suspect is now in the custody of a local pet store.
Five consecutive generations of one Iowa family were all born on the same calendar day. The odds are long enough that the cake arrangements are now permanent.
A magazine borrowed from a New Hampshire library came back 132 years late. Nobody appears eager to calculate the fine.
Damariscotta police fielded an unusual volume of calls about a Sasquatch on Main Street, including one sighting at school drop-off. The case closed when an officer walked up and had a word with the man in the very convincing costume.
A golden retriever bolted on Christmas Day near Lake Tahoe and spent 72 days in the mountains before a shelter scanned his microchip. Thin but unhurt, he came home and then won a national award for it.
A Tampa man sank a miniature basketball from 102 feet — longer than a full court — to break the world record he already held. He trained for this at Pop-a-Shot.
A 75-year-old Florida man visiting family in Michigan kept up his Fantasy 5 habit at a gas station there and hit for $358,104. He is using it to buy a house in Michigan and leave Florida behind.
A 77-year-old St. Petersburg retiree taped a DOWN WITH FLOCK CAMERAS sign to a 12-foot pool skimmer, set up a lawn chair beneath the surveillance pole, and blocked the lens without touching it. Police confirmed there is nothing illegal about any of it.
A deer let itself into Hersheypark and wandered the midway among the visitors. It did not, as far as anyone reported, get in line for anything.
A Seattle raccoon named Jimothy went viral for a shortened spine that makes him almost perfectly round. The city didn't adopt a mascot so much as quietly surrender to one.
A man dressed as Abraham Lincoln was fined for standing at the Lincoln Memorial and reciting the Gettysburg Address. The National Park Service, it turns out, requires a permit for that, and Honest Abe did not have one.