Not sure if this should be categorized under "Golden Toilet Brush Awards" file or "Those Wacky Germans" file, but they're both from Yahoo! News...

(Sudiegirl's note...Please understand that I really try hard not to be mean to other peoples, but after reading all the odd news stories about Germans drinking too much and using construction vehicles wantonly I can't help but wonder what the problem is there! It's like the joke I heard in the movie "Fargo" last night...didja hear the one about the guy who wanted a personalized license plate so he changed his name to JRG 624? Can't remember the exact number/letter combo, but you get the idea, I think...right?)



Well, at least the spiders are gone..
Fri Sep 2,12:18 PM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German woman laid waste to her family home by setting fire to it as she tried to kill spiders in a garage with a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter. (Sounds like something my sister and I might have done on a Budweiser bender...)

Police in the western town of Zuelpich said that when the aerosol failed to finish them off, the 34-year-old woman tried to burn them with the lighter. However, this set the area she had just sprayed on fire and the blaze spread to a hedge. (Whoops...)

"It was a series of unfortunate events which led to the damage," a police spokesman said Thursday. (That's a nice way of putting it...plus it increases sales of that particular book series so there's some kind of symbiotic thing going on...how sweet!)

"She tried to put the fire out with a garden hose, but couldn't. Instead her semi-detached house next to the hedge caught fire. It's now uninhabitable." (Yeah, and on top if it, you can't live there either! OH...wait a minute...whoops...)

Firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze and save the neighboring house, which sustained broken windows and some charring. The spokesman estimated the total cost of the damage at well over 100,000 euros. No one was hurt. (No, but I can tell you this...if I were this lady's neighbor and I found out how this brain trust started the fire, she'd be eating that can of hairspray and then I'd drop in a match.)

"The family have had to look for somewhere else to stay," he said. "The spiders are gone though -- that problem was solved." (Well, judging the policeman's remarks, I'm absolutely positive that if you're two cousins and you want to marry and further populate in Germany, this is YOUR kind of town.)

Sudiegirl's final opinion?

Poor spiders...:-(