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Strange things happen every day.

Think back to the past week, month, or more, and you’ll probably think of some examples in your own life. Or maybe the lives of friends and family who shared the story of something odd with you. I enjoy hearing about unusual happenings and weird stories that make you raise an eyebrow and say “Huh? Really??”

So here are a few interesting stories that caught my attention recently, courtesy of the Associated Press “Oddities” news:

Firstly, a man in the United Kingdom recently avoided jailtime for his part in helping thieves sell their ill-gotten goods. This wouldn’t be too unusual except that the stolen item in question was a solid gold (18-carats!) fully functioning toilet.

You read that right. A bunch of thieves stole a gold toilet and then tried to make some money by getting the man to help them quickly sell the gold. (The toilet was never recovered, and detectives believe it was cut up and sold.)

To make things even weirder, the toilet – which weighed 215 pounds – was being housed at a country mansion famous for being the birthplace of Winston Churchill. But even though the golden toilet worked, it was actually there as a part of an art exhibition. The artist who created it is Maurizio Cattelan (who is also famous for another piece of artwork which was simply a banana duct-taped to a wall).

Personally, I can think of better ways to use gold, but what do I know? I’m not a famous artist.

Moving on… or should I say “moooooving” on (since this next story includes a cow.)

Imagine you’re minding your business one day and you look to the sky to see a helicopter flying by carrying a cow.

A bit unexpected, right?

In early May, a small mountainside village in Switzerland was evacuated thanks to the threat of a serious landslide. In addition to the 300 human residents, the livestock was also moved to a safer location. That included one cow who had to be hoisted out by helicopter, due to being injured. (According to the story, the cow’s name is “Loni.”)

I can report that there are photos included in this story, and the dangling cow looks quite confused by his unusual transportation method.

A total of 190 sheep, 25 other cows, and 20 rabbits were evacuated altogether, but people used more traditional means to get them to safety.

In other unusual animal news, an elephant seal recently got lost on the streets of Cape Town, South Africa. Now, Cape Town is on the coast, so a seal probably isn’t too unusual to spot along the shoreline. But this one made it all the way to a residential neighborhood in one of the city’s suburbs.

Once the lost seal was reported, police and a local security company tried to keep him in place by surrounding it with their cars, but the lost tourist eventually climbed over one of the vehicles and continued on his merry way, eventually making another stop at a shopping mall.

Since the elephant seal was so far from home, marine wildlife specialists and a city veterinarian teamed up to sedate the traveler, and then safely transported him back to the bay.

I’m glad the elephant seal was able to return to the ocean without any problems, although I can’t imagine it was easy to move him through the city. He was estimated to weigh around 4,400 pounds (which, if you’re curious, is the equivalent of roughly 20 solid gold toilets).

Reading about politics these days is anything but fun. Except this one story I recently read about the New Zealand Parliament’s old “biscuit tin” (or cookie jar, for us Americans).

The little metallic container – which has a “Members’ Bills” label taped to the side – contains numbered bingo tokens which correlate to bills submitted by various New Zealand legislators. When there’s a rare open spot on Parliament’s agenda to debate another bill, a number is drawn and the bill is taken up for discussion. Legislators can submit any kind of bill, including the most niche or unpopular ones that might not get the time of day otherwise.

It’s kind of nice to see someone use a good old-fashioned method instead of relying on complicated computer algorithms these days.

The tradition got started back in the 1990s, and has continued ever since. Those who draw the numbers from the tin are someone unaffiliated with any political party, so it ranges anywhere from school students to visitors celebrating a birthday.

Before the biscuit tin method was introduced, legislators had to rush to submit their bills whenever a free spot opened up, sometimes having to wait in line overnight. (This new method seems like a definite improvement.)

Perhaps the most interesting detail to me in this story is that people visiting Parliament’s gift shop can purchase mugs and socks printed with the same white and blue pattern on the tin.

It’s really amazing that you can buy just about anything these days, huh?

And lastly, this story isn’t as “odd” compared to the others, but I thought it was interesting enough to briefly mention. It’s time for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and in recent years, they’ve started adding more and more geographical terms to challenge the young competitors. These place names are a little harder than most others because they often deviate from familiar roots and language patterns that spellers use when they don’t know the word itself.

Some aren’t thrilled with using geographical names, but everything that’s in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary is fair game. That includes names like Abitibi (a lake in Canada) and Hoofddorp (a town in the Netherlands).

I think it’d be fun if one day the competitors had to spell some local names like Potecasi!

Holly Taylor is a staff writer for Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact her at holly.taylor@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.