OLD SCHOOL: Authorities in England received a tip on Jan. 16 and arrived at the Freemasons’ Saxon Hall expecting to put an end to the illegal “rave” reported to be happening there, but instead of loud music and wild teenagers, officers found old people lining up to get their COVID-19 vaccines. “Grumpy old men and grumpy old women were in abundance,” confirmed the hall chairman, with “wheelchairs, walkers and assistive canes.” The man added that things got testy when the vaccine was late arriving: “It was absolute chaos … The parking lot became a crazy maze with 80-year-olds driving aimlessly with their left turn signals blinking.”

TALL ORDER: A Massachusetts town recently installed new parking meters with updated technology to make payment easier, but the city is instead fielding complaints from residents who say the meters are too tall to use. “I’m 5’7,” and I have to do a little tiptoe reach,” one woman who couldn’t do simple math, lamented about the meters measuring about 5 feet, 6 inches high. One town official said public works employees will be lowering the meters to 48 inches in the weeks to come. “Or we can just raise the sidewalks. I like that idea better,” the town official said as he changed a lightbulb, busy holding the bulb while two friends turned the ladder.

STATE OF THE ART: Italian police arrested a 36-year-old man in Naples on Jan. 16 on suspicion of receiving stolen goods and found a 500-year-old copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvatore Mundi,” a painting they returned to the museum it belonged to, surprising museum officials, who had no idea it had been missing. Museum officials were not tipped off that the da Vinci painting had been replaced with a more famous poster of a cat dangling from a rope that read, “Hang In There.”

GOING TO THE HOGS: It seems that the Staten Island Zoo is weathering a storm of controversy over the prediction made by its resident groundhog, Staten Island Chuck, on Feb. 2, an annual event at the zoo. Chuck popped up on a Facebook “livestream” at the designated hour, on the designated day, but something seemed … off. After hours of accumulating snow in the New York area, Chuck was seen to emerge into bright sunlight with no snow on the ground, his handlers wearing sweatshirts. “So there ya’ have it, folks, we’re gonna have an early spring,” announced zoo executive director Ken Mitchell. Viewers weren’t fooled, one commenting, “Welppp this isn’t live.” Previous Groundhog Day celebrations at the zoo have also raised a ruckus. In 2014, a stand-in groundhog named Charlotte died after being dropped by Mayor Bill de Blasio, and in 2009 Chuck bit Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s finger. And when Rudy Giuliani was mayor, no groundhog made an appearance, but a foretelling skunk emerged instead.

A FEW GOOD MEN: Drag queen Spar-Kelly and her neighbors in St. Johns, Florida, are tired of parents parking along their street during school pickup to avoid the traffic at the nearby Creekside High School. So she dressed in her finest and for three days held up a simple sign that read, “THIS IS NOT STUDENT PICK-UP, HONEY.” “If what it takes is just me standing here and telling people to move along, I’ll be a diva and I’ll tell someone to move right along,” she told a local TV station. On Jan. 27, her efforts paid off: A hunky St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputy showed up to patrol the street, while publicly broadcasting the song, “It’s Raining Men” from his car radio.

JOE SHMOE: Women changing in the locker room at Onelife Fitness in Stafford, Virginia, were unhurt on Jan. 30 when Brian Anthony Joe, 41, fell through the ceiling, according to the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office, landing on one of them. Joe, who fell about 10 feet, the sheriff said, was also uninjured, and it was reported the women held him there in the locker room by snapping wet towels at his bum and body shaming him.

DEFECATION OF CHARACTER: Researchers have solved the mystery of how bare-nosed wombats, native to southeastern Australia, produce poop in cubes. Wildlife ecologist Scott Carver of the University of Tasmania is lead author on a study, published Jan. 28 in the journal Soft Matter, that details the particular inner workings of the wombat’s digestive tract that produce the square-shaped dung. “This ability … is unique in the animal kingdom,” Carver said. “Our research found that … you really can fit a square peg through a round hole.” Answered one wombat, “That is disgusting.”

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