Sometimes I wonder if the BBC is pulling my leg.
The Onion reminds me what most people think about theatre. *
The only news worth repeating is going on Down Under.
This story begins, as all good stories do, with a crazed kangaroo crashing through the window of an unsuspecting family and jumping up and down on the bed where they had moments earlier lain fast asleep. Terrified homeowner Beat Ettlin later told reporters his initial thought was "It's a lunatic ninja coming through the window."
And just like a lunatic ninja, the bestial home invader proceeded to furiously jump up and down on their bed, all the while saying nothing, while they cowered down under the covers. But when the marauding marsupial headed into the room of their young son, who immediately began screaming,* Ettlin decided he'd had enough. Clad only in his down-underwear, the hero dad managed to wrestle the 'roo into a headlock and eject it from his house like a drunken merchant marine at closing time, leaving behind a house full of broken glass, shredded upholstery and bloody 'roo prints all over the walls. Mr. Ettlin suffered "scratched buttocks and shredded underpants," according to the BBC news report.
Now, because I am a bad person, my initial thought when I read this was "Hero dad, my ass. I know a cover story when I hear it. This is the old 'honest officer, a kangaroo did all this!' gambit, an outback variant on the old New Mexico standby 'Coyotes came and wrecked the joint!' Dusty old cowpokes have been using this story to explain away suspicious buttock scratches and shredded underpants since the early days of the Wild West."
But then I thought "Why go to all the trouble of faking bloody kangaroo prints all over the walls and ceiling? It doesn't make any sense, when he could just as easily gone with the lunatic ninja angle. Or dingoes."
So I am forced to conclude that we are really looking at a hero-dad-in-his-underpants-fights-off-kangaroo-desperado situation here. Kudos to Beat Ettlin, a Swiss immigrant so tough he's got "Beat" right there in his first name.