New England's getting its first sunny weekend in over a month, and it's just about time. Apparently, there are a lot of people who have been driven stir-crazy by the weather.

First, we have the story of a seventeen-year-old Nashua, NH girl driving to work when a Jaguar pulled out of a driveway right in front of her. She tried to avoid hitting it, but couldn't. But the real shocker was when the other driver got out of the car crying.

You can't really blame him. Not only was it not his car (it belonged to Mom's boyfriend), but he was only two years old.

Next up, we have a rather creative shoplifter in Salem, NH. Now, when most people steal from a store, they usually conceal it on their person somewhere. This woman rubbed it into her hair.

She apparently grabbed a handful of hair dye, ducked into the lady's room, and used it on the spot (cleaning up the spills with a "borrowed" pair of pants). She then tried to flee, still dripping and smelling, but police caught her. Maybe it was the food and drink she had also taken but not paid for that slowed her down. Regardless, she took the "make yourself at home" notion a smidgen too far.

Now, in Newton, NH, we find yet another police wannabe. You know the type -- they usually end up as mall rent-a-cops or the like. Every now and then one of them goes over the edge and starts pulling people over, hassling them, and in general being a pain in the ass.

And every now and then, you get one like this whackjob. He gets drunk and falls asleep behind the wheel of his car at a bus stop with a loaded shotgun in the back seat and a "POLICE" t-shirt. Too bad he's a smidgen old to be a fan of Sting's old band...

And just when you think it couldn't get any dumber, the police end up searching his apartment. They find a collection of guns, a collection of swords, and a collection of drunken teenagers. All three collections got hauled off to the pokey, and the Barney Fife Wannabe has some explaining to do...

And it just isn't New Hampshirites who've gone around the bend. A guy from Maine who sells meats door-to-door decided to expand the payment options beyond cash, check, and credit card. He offered a Stoddard, NH woman his entire truckload for $160.00. When she said she couldn't afford that, he told her he'd take guns, knives, or drug paraphernalia. And when that was unsuccessful, he made his final offer: a box of chicken for a Lewinsky. And when she declined that offer, he tried to take it. He's currently out on bail, and Pacific Prime is looking into a replacement sales rep.

And lest you think it's something particular to New Hampshire that's sending people around the bend, here's a story out of Boston without a single Cow Hampshire tie I can see. A mechanic for the Boston Police Department decided he needed a smidgen extra income. He noticed that both the police and most of the cabbies drive Ford Crown Victorias, so he started taking home a few spare parts here and there (apparently tires, wheels, and hubcaps were the most common) and selling them to cabbies on the cheap. He's currently awaiting trial, and cabbies all over Boston are scrambling for receipts.

It really is a beautiful day out, and I worked 6 days and over 50 hours this last week. But I'm torn. Do I dare go out among all these whackos, or do I stay inside and hide, risking turning into one of them myself?

Maybe I'll just do what the invisible monkeys are telling me. I can trust them...

(Update, 2:45 p.m.: Smart monkeys. Now we are having a thunderstorm.)