6 'Wacky' Headlines With Legitimately Sad Backstories

6 Ramen Is Displacing Tobacco As The Most Popular U.S. Prison Currency

We all know from movies set in prisons that cigarettes are worth their weight in gold inside the joint. But a study found that these days, those cancer sticks have been replaced by ramen noodles as the currency of choice. There's even a recipe book, which you can buy with money, called Prison Ramen.

Everyone knows cigarettes are great, so what gives here? Have criminals become more concerned for their health, just like the rest of the population? Or maybe the 10 million cooking shows they watch in the television room inspired them to become a very specific type of chef?

The Sad Truth

You know what you can't eat to survive? Cigarettes. Even people with a two-pack-a-day addiction might consider spending what precious little money they have on food if they're starving. And in more and more prisons, that is precisely the case. Cost-cutting has led to lower-quality food, and less of it, leaving inmates desperate for sustenance. That's especially true of those who spend their limitless free time exercising their way to being in prison shape, which is somewhere right above "Olympic athlete" on the scale of how fit a person can be. Some prisons aren't even giving inmates the recommended number of calories to get through a day of binge-watching Netflix, much less one jam-packed with physical activity. Buying packs of ramen, which is cheap, readily available from the commissary, and easy to cook even with limited tools, fills that gap.

That said, while ramen might be filling, it is far from healthy. Inmates are getting huge doses of sodium every time they eat it. Since it's so cheap, it's not unusual for someone in prison to consume three or four packs a day. At that point, you might as well go back to smoking. Still, ramen is so prized that fights have broken out over it, meaning that they have much more imminent concerns than a heart attack which might kill them years down the line. Especially when you take into account that the food you're served in prison is sometimes literally laced with poison.

5 The UAE May Build A Mountain From Scratch

Oh, the United Arab Emirates. Such a weird country, what with their bizarre building fetish and all. It seems like there's no end to their lust for putting up bigger and more impressive structures on a continual basis. It wasn't enough to have the biggest skyscraper in the world. They weren't content with that hotel that looks like a ship. And those islands that look like a palm tree? Well, that would just be a weird place to stop. They have even bigger plans for their next project. To put it simply, they want to build a huge mountain. In the desert. The completely flat desert. We get it. You have a ton of money. Can't you find a more useful way to waste it?

The Sad Truth

Yes, the UAE does have a ton of money. But like most desert places, they're also desperately in need of water, and willing to try anything to get more. They've already attempted something called "cloud seeding," wherein you drop stuff into clouds to cause rain. But that has led to some serious problems -- namely, causing 11 inches of rain to fall in just 24 hours in a country that usually gets less than five inches a year. Just another reminder that tampering with the atmosphere to fend off global warming is how Snowpiercer shit happens.

They've also considered sailing icebergs down from the Arctic. Because if there are any two great tastes that taste great together, it's sailing and icebergs.

Now their next big idea is building a mountain to permanently change their weather patterns, because mountains are second only to rappers at strip clubs in their ability to make it rain. No one's disputing that it might work; it's just that no one knows if it might work too well. It could change the environment for the worse, leading to floods and other disasters. And once you have the damn thing up, it's going to be quite a task bringing it back down. Never mind the fact that a similar project in the Netherlands had an estimated cost of $230 billion -- if the mountain were hollow. You could probably move the UAE to the Netherlands for less money.

4 A Utah Businessman Takes Out Full-Page Ad Looking For A Wife

This romantic dude is looking for a wife, and how better to do that in the era of Match.com and Tinder than taking out a full-page ad in a newspaper?

Forty-eight-year-old Baron Brooks has never been married before. Which makes sense, considering the specifics he wants in a wife: You'll need to be 34 to 38 years old, attractive, short, "height and weight proportional," conservative (specifically, no voting for Obama or Hillary), no kids of your own yet but willing to be a housewife once Brooks impregnates you, and, oh, willing to up and move to Salt Lake City to be with this prince among men.

The Sad Truth

The $900 ad was actually taken out by the man's 78-year-old father, who didn't bother to bring it up with his son beforehand. According to Baron, Arthur Brooks is "nuts," "neurotic," "passive-aggressive," and has been doing weird stuff ever since he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Something about realizing his own mortality made him suddenly want to see his son married, and he desperately wants a grandchild. Despite how "embarrassing and ridiculous" he found the whole thing, Baron has decided that it's worth a shot, so he's letting his father go ahead and interview any women who actually get in contact. Meanwhile, he'll just keep dating the two women he's seeing -- neither of whom he sees himself marrying, by the way.

Quick, ladies, before you lose this catch.

3 A Man Was Sucker-Punched Because He Looked Like Shia LaBeouf

Mario Licato was having an awesome Saturday in New York City. After hanging out with friends, he jumped on the train to go see a show. But after he got off and started climbing up the steps, a random stranger coming down punched him in the face. The only explanation he was given as the guy ran for the train and disappeared? "This is because you look exactly like Shia LaBeouf!"

Licato had to check with bystanders that, yes, he had really just been sucker-punched because he looks like an annoying actor. Since he wasn't that badly hurt, it's funny!

The Sad Truth

The punch was just the start of this poor guy's bad day. Next, the EMTs who showed up to make sure he was okay were assholes, with one of them saying, "Welcome to New York," as if New Yorkers are just famously known for clocking people who look like famous actors in the face. Also, Licato had lived there all his life. Then they tried to talk him out of getting medical care, basically telling him a Band-Aid could replace stitches. Oh, and they left before the police arrived, which is actually illegal. The cops took down his story, but missed out on hugely important details, like a description of the attacker, and according to the FDNY, they didn't even bother reporting the incident. Licato couldn't get out of going to work the next day, and looked so bad that the people he was photographing had to be warned what to expect before he showed up. All because he looks like Shia LaBeouf -- as if that isn't already punishment enough.

2 A Danish Town Says Pork Must Be Served At Public Institutions

Everybody loves bacon, right? Even vegetarians like bacon. So how cool is it that a town in Denmark decided that it was a requirement to serve pork at all public functions? This is why those Scandinavian countries are always coming out on top in happiness surveys! Because they have amazing programs like this. Denmark: Where they made it illegal not to serve bacon! We can all get on board with that.

The Sad Truth

You know who doesn't eat bacon, or any pork at all? Muslims. Yeah, it turns out that this was all an attempt by very conservative anti-immigrant parties to make sure refugees from the Middle East felt just that little bit more unwanted.

The town of Randers was reacting to a 2013 decision by many nursery schools to drop pork from their menus. This probably just made it easier to feed all the kids the same thing, since if some can't eat pork, then why make it? But it caused a huge uproar, with politicians all the way up to the prime minister weighing in, concerned that poor innocent children were being indoctrinated, and that Danish food was going to disappear from the face of the Earth (famous Danish dishes like ... um ... you know the one). I'm not sure how not eating pork at school would suddenly convert a bunch of four-year-olds to become Muslims, but these are the sort of things that happen when you involve the magic of bacon.

1 Lenny Kravitz Was Accused Of Illegal Dentistry In The Bahamas

I'd believe a lot of things about music legend Lenny Kravitz. If you told me he was arrested for being too sexy, I would buy it. That he kept a secret harem of 100 women? Sure. That the queen of England once fainted at one of his concerts? Well, she's only human.

But performing illegal dentistry? Has the musician had a serious midlife crisis and suddenly decided to change jobs? Did he go on vacation, get a little drunk, and start trying to pull teeth out of the mouths of random passersby?

The Sad Truth

Kravitz actually lives in the Bahamas, and is constantly doing charity work there. This time, he had flown in four dentists from the U.S. and made them available at no cost to locals who normally couldn't afford dental work. Obviously, this is a great thing for him to do. Unfortunately, he didn't get the right permits, and some dickwad squealed to the police. So on the fourth day of the clinic, the cops raided his makeshift surgery center while patients were having procedures done. One person was getting dentures, and another was in the middle of a friggin' root canal when the dentists were told they had 15 minutes to pack up their stuff and get out. Keep that in mind next time you're in the midst of an awful dental procedure: You might be paying for the pleasure, but at least you don't have to worry your dentist will stop halfway through and get put on a plane back to the United States.

Kathy wrote a very funny book called Funerals To Die For , and you can buy it here. Or follow her on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter.

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