A Panties-Loving Goblin, the Hit
Man Cometh & a Breastfeed Bandit

Reality has become way more inventive than the pampered Hollywood semi-gods may dream of in their golden bathtubes. Or something like that. A trio of far out stories we’ve found, for instance, could turn into such wondrous movie experiences, that we bet no idea currently being considered for the screen would come any close.
The thing is, though, for the man who came forward about some vanishing panties in Zimbabwe, or the woman obsessed in feeding somebody else’s baby, or the unknown hoaxer pretending to have a contract on the reader, this is what life feels like. Since no one can make this stuff up, we’re glad to brief you on them.
As it’s customary on this site, we’re not about to showcase anyone’s dirty laundry here, or paint what these unfortunate souls go through every day with heavy tones. Why bother? The absurd of their clash with reality is enough to provide plenty of color and misery, without us adding any more salt to the wounds.
Still we’re always in awe and enraptured by what we naively assume should be an uniform perception of the universe that surrounds us. As it turns out, some universes are way more intense than others, and for those who’re capable of soaking themselves in the flip side of the common experience, well, more power to them, we must say.
After all, such uniform perception is, in itself, an illusion, a self-deception we’re used to invoke every time reality seems to sway in unpredictable ways. Even when we’re on to the masquerade, we still guard ourselves against any attempt at subversion of that fragile link to normality. Poor us and bless the unmitigated souls who tread fearlessly into such ever-shifting territory.

THE PANTIES, THE HEALER & THAT GOBLIN
In Bulawayo, a village in Zimbabwe, for weeks, women had been waking up in the middle of the night without their panties. For the village, this has been the equivalent of a CNN’s human-values story, a MNSBC’s breaking news story, and a Fox News’ odd story, all rolled up into one. Up to 26 women have, embarrassingly, complained to local authorities about the strange occurrences.
So Chief Njelele did what any sensible law enforcement official would do in such a situation: he invited a n’anga (spiritual healer) from the Hwange District, along with a prophet from an apostolic sect, to conduct a cleansing ceremony in the place. That’s when a local man, Lameck Ncube, came forward with a startling revelation.
In front of hundreds of villagers and journalists from many media organizations (none of the mentioned above, though), the 62-year-old Ncube claimed ownership of a goblin, which he said was the one who’s been terrorizing the women. And more: said trickster has been playing pranks around since at least 2004.
Other locals have testified before the healers, but none made more sense that Ncube, who said that he had acquired the goblin a long time ago, to enhance his luck, but that recently it had turned menacing and hostile. In other words, it was his but he kind of lost control over it, which poised a serious threat to the community in general, and the women in particular.
The healers then immediately stopped the witch hunting ceremony and accompanied Ncube to his place, to ‘capture the goblin which shared a bedroom with one of his sons,’ according to reports. The crowd followed them too to catch a glimpse of the entity, ‘which looked like a living creature,’ and was wearing a pair of blue female panties. Those belonged to Ncube’s wife, by the way.
The participants were clearly agitated, and at some point, there was a threat from the women to beat up Ncube, since they realized that the creature had actually had sexual relations with them. But Chief Njelele, who in any way condones witchcraft in his village, kept the proceedings under control, and the goblin was burned to everyone’s approval.
LET ME BREASTFEED YOUR BABY
The case of Rebbeca Silva, of South Dakota, is much more prosaic albeit equally bizarre. A couple of months ago, a non-identified woman called 911 to complain that a stranger (that would be Rebbeca) had broken into her house and was caught attempting to feed her two-month-old baby in his bedroom. In fact, when the police arrived at the house, the stranger was still lying in bed.
In her defense, Rebecca claims that it was all a lie, since she was actually wearing the pajamas that the woman herself had lent her earlier in the evening, and that the breastfeeding attempt did not even happened. But since the officers suspected that alcohol may have been a factor in the dispute, they’ve arrested the intruder.
It’s a simple story, and we’re not going to make too much of it. But it’s certainly a twist in a theme that, baffling, has been causing some controversy lately, having even deserved the cover of Time magazine a few months ago. What anyone would expected to be a matter of personal choice, to breastfeed or not your own child, has become another horse to be ridden by everyone else.
Now there are those who advocate breastfeeding, which is healthy, but to everyone, which is not. Those who feel outraged about public breastfeeding, and those who support the act. Those who don’t care, the baby formula manufacturers trying to push their products against it, and of course, the religious right and conservative pundits who blame it all on Obamacare. Whatever.

THERE’S A CONTRACT ON YOUR LIFE
In the list of bizarre and malignant Internet hoaxes, there hasn’t been any shortage of ideas to terrorize those too quick at jumping at conclusions. There are threats, appeals to your heartstrings, false warnings that your whole computer will be errased from everything you care about, and simply dire but cruel jokes. And we’re not talking about viruses here.
Now comes the tale of the hit man who, yes, has received a large sum to do away with you using an elaborate contraption involving a sex toy, but, guess what? took some pity on you upon realizing how innocent you really are. Right there, a red flag should have popped up, but apparently in Ireland, the spam has been taken seriously.
Properly scrutinized, the message has all the trapping of similar hoaxes, including the bad grammar and the not-quite right details about brands and products. That, and naturally, the fact that hit men are not prone to warn in advance of what’s in store for you, lest them not to fall victims themselves of their own employers.
Also, even if they would, and the ‘letter’ implies that the person should contact them perhaps to pay their way out of the threat, we don’t know of any hit man who would express second-thoughts about their missions, except perhaps in the movies. Then again, we can say all of that because we haven’t actually received the message.
Presumably, we’d feel differently if we had. In any case, at this point what tickles us is not that this sort of thing still thrives online, the veiled threat, or the impending doom, the conspiracy ‘truths,’ or the imperiled orphan; but that some actually consider its validity for more than a minute.
A recent, quite revealing study about Internet hoaxes, specially those with the Nigeria trademark, concluded that they’re deliberately badly written, with gross grammatical errors and outrageous promises of riches. The reason for that is to literally weed out anyone with a reasonable grasp of reality, that would almost surely delete the whole thing.
Such schemes, the study finds, are designed to catch the most naive and the most ‘unsavvy’ among us, who would easily fall prey to it, without much fuss. It makes sense. To put these things together must cost money and time, even though we still wonder why would anyone, who has plenty of either one of them, or both, want to spend them in such uncertain enterprise.
But that’s just us, naive, unimaginative, and skeptical as they come. Oh, yes, and supporters of breast milk against formula too. With all such credentials, we wonder: why would anyone want to put a contract on us? Regardless, with the money we’re about to have deposited in our account, we’ll have enough to pay up the man and live, incognito, in some tropical island somewhere.