The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.January 16, 1993Escondido attorney Ben Echeverria filed a $2 million lawsuit in August against Texaco Inc. and a local gas station manager because station attendants were pumping gas for women at self-service prices, but not for men.The station almost immediately stopped its practice and forced women to start pumping for themselves.

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.January 16, 1993In 1989, a Union Bridge, Md., high school permitted a female student, Tawana Hammond, 17, to try out for its football team under the pressure of a federal statute that bars school discrimination on the basis of gender.On her first scrimmage, Tawana, a running back, was tackled and suffered massive internal injuries.In October 1992, she filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the county board of education for its alleged failure to tell her how dangerous football is.

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.January 12, 1993Raleigh, N.C., judge Don Overby, in several recent cases involving juvenile theft, has forced the convicted kid to go home, retrieve his own most prized possession, bring it back to Overby's courtroom, and watch while the judge smashes it up.

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.January 12, 1993San Francisco police arrested Russell C. Sultan in July and charged him with attempting to extort $23,000 from his mother and girlfriend by claiming to have been kidnapped for ransom.After tracing telephone calls, police, guns drawn, burst into a motel room to find Sultan casually eating fried chicken and watching a 49ers football game.Sultan said the kidnappers had merely left him alone for a while, and exclaimed to the officers, "What took you so long?"

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.January 12, 1993Long Beach police arrested two small, skinny men in October and charged them with stealing six 45-pound barbells from the Buffum-Downtown YMCA.The men were struggling to keep the barbells in a small cart that kept tipping over because they were not strong enough to steer it.

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.January 12, 1993Rhett Jacobs, Democratic candidate for the South Carolina House and a man who listed "education" as his top priority, submitted a required campaign disclosure form in October, handwritten, on which he detailed expenses for "filling fee," "campain work" and "litature."

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.January 12, 1993Richard Kyle won his Arizona House seat in November more easily than he had won the Republican primary in September. He and his primary opponent, John Gaylord, had tied and had agreed to settle things with one hand of five-card stud dealt by the speaker of the Arizona House.Kyle's pair of sevens put him into the general election.

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.December 18, 1992Michael J. Schmidt, 29, set up a hidden video camera at his home near Superior, Wis., because he had been burglarized several times and thought he could catch the culprits in the act.The burglars came back and were captured on tape, which Schmidt turned over to the sheriff.Among the items the burglars took from Schmidt's house was a box containing eight marijuana plants.Schmidt was charged with misdemeanor drug possession.

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.December 18, 1992In October, a cleaning crew accidentally tossed out an exhibit at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The exhibit consisted of 14,000 cigarette butts -- the amount a smoker produces in a lifetime -- crammed into coffee cans. Said the artist, in defense of the cleaning crew, "(The butts) didn't smell very good."

The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.December 18, 1992Three maintenance workers in Alexandria, Ind., fixed a massive street-flooding problem in October when they pulled a 200-pound hairball from a manhole. Said one of the men, "We thought we had a goat."