Etc...

Or we could just let it melt

Perhaps you've seen TV news footage of hazmat (hazardous materials) specialists in moon suits working the site of an oil spill or some other accident involving toxic waste. If so, you can imagine the scene last Sunday after someone reported a "flabby" red, orange, and green substance beside a road near Halle, Germany. Police responded quickly, cordoning off a wide area, so that specialists from the fire department – yes, wearing protective gear – could poke, prod, and otherwise inspect the stuff. "[We] always have to assume a worst-case scenario ," a fire department spokesman explained. OK. So, was it acid? Pesticide residue? Ah, no. For two hours, according to the same spokesman, "We conducted a variety of tests and figured out it was ... jelly." Or, to be specific, Jell-O, left over from a wedding reception. No word on why it ended up there, but it wasn't dangerous to anyone. Still, the cops cast a net to find out who in the area had been involved in a wedding recently enough that some of the molded gelatin from the party was still reasonably stiff . Thanks to a tip, they tracked down the groom and roused him from sleep at noon. He agreed to clean up the mess himself.