Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for January 18, 2022

Tonight I bring you a true story – though not a personal one — from a couple of decades ago:

The Dallas Opera was on strike, but management decided “the show must go on” so they brought in a couple of piano players in place of the orchestra and singers who were, shall we say, of less than star quality.

The performance was Carmen, and, as in many operas, a lot of people kill each other before the final curtain. This particular work has the title character’s lover, Don José , stab her to death in the final scene. However, the replacement singing the part of Carmen was of such poor quality that when Don José made his first entrance in Act 1, a voice from the back of the theater rang out “Don José! Kill her! NOW!!!”

It brought down the house.

Jason, has Jewel been to Maryland lately?

Castano did that dog a bit dirty. I looked up the photos and it looks significantly less like an elderly cat (still a bit though)

Dion and the dog are definitely soulmates. Who else would walk 80+ miles through the Gobi desert.

The Marylander better have had good home insurance. (He could’ve prayed to Saint Patrick to help with the serpentine dilemma.)

A young cat followed me and the boys home on a Halloween night back in the 80s. We gave it a saucer of milk outside. Next morning he was still there, and been with us till he died many years later. We named him Spook. Two reasons — mostly black and specific time when he chose us.

I’m not a big fan of cats, but he was different, special. Never had another after him.

Makes one wonder if animals have a sixth sense to detect the people they want to adopt.

Did the guy in the lower left corner just lay an egg or drop a dookie?

The snakes would have left on their own if they’d seen a cleverly placed “We’ve Been Wanting To Talk To You About Your Car Warranty” sign in the house.

Take care, may revered first responder Dan “Sparky” Whilord be with you, and gesundheit.

The snake thing reminds me of some guy who had a clogged bathtub drain and used Drano and Gasoline to clear it. Did a great job when it exploded.

What’s the house fire caused by Pharaoh’s serpents?

I bet the snakes were gone, though.

i tried to smoke out a snake once, but he couldn’t pass …

I used to smoke snakes, but then I switched to tobacco

That’s a dog?

Was that a dog or a dingo?

If no one was there to measure it, how do WE know how big the egg was?

That dog looks like a, well, not a dog.

I feel like that stray dog marathon story should be a movie, there should be a musical number in it, and headpats

I thought the only elephant bird was in “Horton Hatches the Egg.”

I wonder how many hoops the Poolesville homeowner was made to jump through by the insurance company to prove it was an “accident “.

Saw one of those eggs on Pawn Stars. Never knew they existed.

Speaking of running -

Two little boys stole a big bag of oranges from a neighbor and decided to go to a quiet place to share the lot equally. One of them suggested the nearby cemetery. As they were jumping over the gate to enter the cemetery, two oranges fell out of the big bag but they didn’t bother to pick them up since they had enough in the bag.

A few minutes later, a drunkard on his way from a bar, passed near the cemetery gate and heard a voice saying: “One For Me, One For You, One For Me, One For You…”. He immediately sobered up and ran as fast as he could to a nearby church and asked for the priest. “Father, please come with me. Come and witness God and Satan sharing corpses at the cemetery”.

They both ran back to the cemetery gate and the voice continued: “One For Me, One For You, One For Me, One For You…”. Suddenly, the voice stopped counting and said: “What About The Two At The Gate? Let’s get them”.

You should see the marathon. The priest almost ran past the church gate shouting: “Please no! We are not dead yet”.

Until next time. (Sorry to be so late).

Well, it probably did rid the property of the snakes . . .

Well okay, we see how the elephant bird’s egg compares to that of a chicken, but it would be more interesting to compare it to an ostrich egg.