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The stories below are real. They were featured in real periodicals. They happened to real people.

by Ryan Griffiths staff writer

Mommy and Daddy aren't always right

Sherry and Paul Lipscomb of Westerville, OH, told school officials that their son was diagnosed by a doctor to have gender-identity disorder and was going to enter the 2000-2001 school year as a young lady. In a court decision, the boy was sent to live in a foster home for the past year and is reportedly doing just fine as a boy.

The child, whose name was not released, attended kindergarten as a boy at the same school he was to be enrolled in as a first grade girl. [Cincinatti Enquirer, 9-24-01]

Security issues

Dennis Knaus, a 59-year-old businessman from Malvern, PA, supposedly passed through metal detectors and security with bladed box cutters and boarded a Minneapolis bound plane at Philadelphia International Airport on Monday, September 24. After Knaus boarded the plane and before departure, he notified authorities that he was indeed carrying the instruments that were used just two weeks prior in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Knaus claims that after he was apprehended he called his wife, told her what he had done and pleaded with her to cancel a trip to Ireland that was upcoming. After the call to his wife, Knaus called the Federal Aviation Association to inform their officials of his breach of security.

Knaus spent the night in jail and was expected to be arraigned in federal court Tuesday. He was charged with carrying a weapon past a security checkpoint and could face up to a year in prison.

[ABCNEWS.com, 9-24-01]

"Grandmom!"

A group of Tasmania women ages 65-82 decided to bare it all in a black and white calendar to raise money for curtains to hang in their local community center. The women were photographed knitting, playing cards, and cleaning the kitchen among other things. Reportedly, the first 1,000 copies sold incredibly fast and people were demanding for more. Although, many women were approached about posing only a few ended up doing it stating that their husbands held them back.

[ABCNEWS.com, 9-25-01]

Slick crime

A 25-year old Colombian was caught robbing other guests in five star hotels. French police caught the perpetrator after reports from a hotel occupant that there was a man with Latin American complexion in his room. His method was pure trickery, as he would act the part of the people he was robbing.

Last December, the Colombian man supposedly walked into the exquisite Bristol hotel in Paris, walked up to the desk and demanded for the key to an American banker's suite claiming to be the banker. "Juan", as the authorities have dubbed him, proceeded to steal $20,000 in cash along with credit cards and a substantial amount of jewelry.

Authorities claim that after obtaining the key, "Juan" slipped into the banker's complimentary bath robe and called the reception desk to have his safe in his room unlocked.

In this case, the workers of the hotel seem to have much less sense than this crafty thief.