Rant #2,447: Stupid Cupid

We are now in the dog days of September.

That's right, September, right before we move into the fall this coming weekend.

The "dog days" are usually relegated to August, but I am going to extend them to September, because if no news is good news, we are in that cycle now, where non-newsworthy stories are getting covered as if they are stories that will rock the world off its axis.

Beyond the latest ego-driven female celebrities to expose themselves in social media--Gwyneth Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley (repeat offender) are the latest to go this route and have their bare necessities covered as if they were doing this as heads of state--we have the latest story, which got full coverage on the national news and local news shows ... why? I don't know. Third base.

(Sorry, Abbott and Costello, but it just fit.)

Anyway, a San Diego woman went to sleep the other night with her engagement ring on her finger, but when she woke up, it was not on her finger anymore.

Well, where was it?

Evidently, the woman had an extremely vivid dream which included her fiancee. In it, the dynamic duo were facing some really bad guys on a runaway train. Her fiancee told her that in lieu of the circumstances, to protect her valuables, she should swallow the ring.

And swallow the ring she did.

And evidently, she swallowed the ring ... yes, in her sleep, she took the ring off and actually swallowed it.

When she woke up and looked for her ring on her finger, it wasn't there, but she knew exactly where it was.

The woman told her fiancee, they rushed to the nearest walk-in medical facility--why they didn't go directly to the hospital is beyond me--and x-rays were taken, and lo and behold, the ring was in her stomach.

She ended up having an emergency oncological procedure--some outlets said she had it in the walk-in facility, but I don't think they do such things there, or do they?--and the ring was retrieved.

The woman swears that she will never wear the ring again when she goes asleep, and will take it off when she goes off to dreamland.

And she explained the situation with such glee, basking in her own glow about her new-found 15 minutes of fame.

Heck, maybe she should of done her explanation in a bikini or in the altogether like Paltrow or Hurley ... I doubt anyone would have batted an eye at this display.

This story, as it is, is bizarre, weird, and I don't know if I believe the whole thing, but evidently it happened, and in lieu of covering wars, weather disasters and the like, the major news outlets gave this story maximum coverage.

This used to be called a human interest story, but in the current world where bikini snapshots are considered to be major news items, a story like this is News with a capital N.

Yes, things are weird in California--some people say they wish an earthquake would detach it from the mainland U.S. so it could become its own country with its own rules--and this story just lends credence to that belief.

And on a very slow news weekend, this story got more coverage than it ever deserved.

The weekend actually began with a real news item, and a sad one, as singer Eddie Money died. He was really living on borrowed time anyway, having survived a major drug overdose and various bouts with drugs and alcohol abuse, but guys like this seem to have a determination to keep on going, and he certainly did.

But he finally checked out, taking his "Two Tickets to Paradise" with him.

I was a fan of his, having several of his LPs and singles in my collection. He was the atypical late 1970s-early 1980s rocker, was from Long Island and had that look.

And he was mighty successful, one of the final singles-driven artists that made it big when we still bought vinyl records at our local record stores.

His MTV videos were among the best that the channel aired during that time period, actually making some of his songs better than they really were.

But he seemed like a nice guy, who just got all rolled up into things that were beyond his grasp.

His music will "Baby, Hold On" way beyond his 70 years of life.

Now that was a news story for all to cover.

Money and a misplaced diamond ring.

Now that was a good pairing, wasn't it?