GRANDMA'S CRYSTAL BOWL:

"It was going to be a fabulous meal," recalls Tina Sutherland, co-owner of Charlie Finds Great Old Stuff, which has stores in both Roosevelt and Greenwood.

For this special occasion, Sutherland had laid out a "lace tablecloth, candles and Grandma's crystal bowl sitting there ready to be filled with a seafood gumbo that smelled terrific. Hot broth with clams, mussels and crab. Hours had gone into getting this impressive dinner ready.

"At just the right moment, the bubbling, boiling hot gumbo was poured into the beautiful bowl - which shattered. Hot liquids and cold glass, no matter how pretty, don't mix.

"The moral of this story: enjoy your antiques, but take care of them!"

THE CASE OF THE PERSISTENT RODENT:

Michael Hobbs, owner of a pest control business in Greenwood called MD Pest Recommendations, remembers being called upon to rid a client's store of a particularly persistent rodent. One of the store's employees had even given the rodent the nickname of "Ben."

Each night, the rodent would leave his droppings in the women's restroom and the owner of the shop was getting furious, Hobbs recalls.

"We tried everything - glue board, snap traps ... even bait," all to no avail, he says.

He eventually started wondering if the culprit wasn't a rodent after all. "Finally, I asked (the shopkeeper), 'Is there an employee who might be upset with you?'"

The shopkeeper acknowledged that she had fired someone the previous week who might still have a copy of the store key and, by the way, she suspects the ex-worker might be "practicing some type of Voodoo!"

At Hobbs' suggestion, the shopkeeper immediately changed the locks to her store. While the bait did disappear the following night, Hobbs reports that after that, Ben vanished, never to be seen or heard from again.

Was it voodoo? We'll never know...