An Idaho woman did a car thief one better — she stole her own car back.
Cheryl Otero and her husband heard her 1996 Eagle Talon (search) start up in their Pocatello driveway just after midnight on Saturday, the Idaho State Journal of Pocatello reports.
She yelled, "Our car's being stolen!" but the thief drove off just as her husband ran outside.
He got into his own car to give pursuit, while Cheryl called police, then had her friend Cami Gelles pick her up.
Husband, wife and friends — men in one car, women in another — combed the small city of 50,000 for the Talon.
After a couple of fruitless hours, Otero told Gelles she'd fill her tank for her trouble, and they pulled into a gas station.
Suddenly they saw a familiar pair of headlights. The women watched as the Talon pulled up to a bank of pay phones across the street. A strange man got out to make a call.
Gelles quietly drove up to the Talon. Otero hopped into the driver's seat, stuck her key in the ignition and sped off.
Rap music instantly blared out of the CD player. Otero noticed that her collection of Christian-music CDs and other personal items were gone.
"As I'm driving off in my car," she related to the State Journal, "I'm wondering if I hadn't gotten in the wrong car because the interior was so different."
Gelles was supposed to take off after Otero. But instead, she got out of her own car and marched over to the suspect.
"You stole my friend's car!" she shouted. "You're going to jail!"
He denied it, but she grabbed him and tried to hold him until cops showed up.
The man started hitting Gelles, according to Otero, saying "I have warrants! I'm not going back to jail!"
"She started hitting him back," Otero added. "She gave as good as she got. I didn't know that side of her."
Finally, the suspect managed to wriggle out of the sweatshirt Gelles was holding him by just as an onlooker came up to help her. The suspect ran off.
"You should have seen my husband's face when we drove up in that car," Otero told the newspaper. "His mouth was dropped to the ground, and we were like, 'Girls rule!'"
Pocatello police Lt. Rick Capell said the women were lucky the suspect wasn't armed, but added that Gelles had given enough of a description to ensure a good chance of catching him.
— Thanks to Out There readers Jennifer H. and Kim F.
Man Cashes In One Million Pennies
LYNDHURST, Ohio (AP) — A retiree turned in more than 1 million pennies at a coin-counting machine Tuesday, getting $10,480.13 back for 3½ decades of thrift.
Over the years, Eugene Sukie, 78, of Barberton, a retired glass plant supervisor, rolled the pennies in wrappers and stored them in 575 cigar boxes organized by year and mint.
The pennies, weighing 3½ tons, were trucked from Sukie's home to a coins-to-cash machine at a suburban Cleveland supermarket.
Sukie was worried that he and his wife were getting old and eventually wouldn't be able to get the pennies out of their basement.
Collecting the pennies helped him relax, Sukie said.
"In the evenings, I'd go into the basement and count them. It was relaxing for me," he said.
Coinstar Inc. (search) of Bellevue, Wash., which operates coin-counting machines, charged Sukie an 8.9 percent service charge, or $932.73, and paid him $1,500 for the right to tell his story, Coinstar spokeswoman Yvette Batalla said. Sukie pocketed more than $11,000.
— Thanks to Out There reader Jill P.
Connecticut Man Arrested for 'Leaf Rage'
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — Perhaps it's just a seasonal affliction, but a man has been arrested in what was described as a "leaf rage" incident.
Michael Peters, 67, became angry when city employees told him they would not remove leaves from his property, police said. He was arrested Monday after confronting town workers clearing leaves in his neighborhood.
Operations supervisor Robert Gerbert said Peters was a "raving maniac."
"He grabbed my jacket and said, 'You're not going anywhere,'" Gerbert said. "The guy was spitting and swearing — it was the most disgusting scene I've ever seen."
Peters said he's frustrated that his leaves have not been picked up in the more than three decades he has lived at his home.
"I went berserk. I got very angry," Peters said. "After 34 years, things build up. I am a taxpayer. ... All I am trying to do is get a service that's being offered to all of my neighbors."
Officials said the leaves weren't collected because they were on Peters' right of way, not the street where workers collect them, officials said.
City worker Jim Crabb said crews would have likely come back to Peters' home — perhaps later that day — to pick up the leaves, had he asked politely.
"We're not big, mean ogres," he said.
Police charged Peters with breach of peace, a misdemeanor, and issued him a summons to appear in court Dec. 1.
Highways Division Supervisor Michael Zarba said he could not recall a similar dispute over leaf pickups in his eight years on the job.
"There have been issues where we've had to talk to residents and tried to calm them down, but nothing where we've had to call police," he said. "People get very emotional about leaves."
Frank Fedeli, supervisor of the Citizens' Service Center, said Peters called the center after his arrest to complain that his leaves had still not been picked up.
"That's chutzpah," Fedeli said.
Soccer Team Executive Tries to Run Over Referee
CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — The chairman of a Moldovan soccer team became so incensed when a penalty kick was awarded to the opponent that he drove his car onto the field and tried to run over the referee.
No one was hurt, and the game was called off.
During Saturday's first division game in Floreni between Roso Floreni (search) and Politehnica Chisinau (search), referee Vitalie Onica gave Politehnica a penalty kick with the score 1-1.
After Politehnica made the kick, Roso chairman Mihai Macovei drove onto the field and attempted to run over the referee several times. Onica dodged the car each time.
Macovei left the field and was stopped by police officers when he tried to return, Politehnica coach Ion Caras. Macovei has made no comment.
The Moldovan soccer federation on Monday fined Macovei about $1,900, and an investigation is under way.
New York Man Tries to Swim With Crocodiles
NEW YORK (AP) — A man was undergoing psychiatric evaluation after he jumped naked into a pool of carnivorous reptiles at the Bronx Zoo (search), authorities said.
The episode happened at about 1:30 p.m. Friday, when the man, whose name was not released, stripped off his clothes and climbed a 5-foot wall surrounding the zoo's tank of caimans (search) — a type of crocodile from Central and South America, police said.
The tank was inside the zoo's World of Darkness section, which features nocturnal animals.
He tried to touch one of the toothy lizards before police and zookeepers were called to the scene and pulled him out.
"Thankfully, no one got hurt and it didn't happen while there were any school groups around," zoo spokesman Linda Corcoran told the Daily News for Saturday editions.
It was not clear why the man jumped into the tank. He was taken to Jacobi Medical Center (search) for observation.
Bus Driver Proposes to Passenger
OSLO, Norway — One passenger aboard an express bus to Oslo was more surprised than the rest by the driver's announcement over the loudspeaker.
"Right behind me is a fair-haired treasure," the driver, 39-year-old Oeivind Martinsen, announced, continuing: "Jeanette, will you marry me?"
The other passengers, though surprised, applauded and then quieted down to hear the response on Friday's trip from the southern town of Fredrikstad to Oslo.
When Johansen, 33, said "Yes," the busload of people burst into thunderous applause and celebration, the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet reported Monday.
Martinsen told the newspaper he had told his fiancee that when the day came for him to propose, he'd try to make it memorable.
"I don't know if it was romantic, but it at least was amusing," he told Dagbladet.
The couple had been together about six months and the topic of marriage had not been seriously discussed.
Compiled by FOXNews.com's Paul Wagenseil.
Got a good "Out There" story in your hometown? We'd like to know about it. Send an e-mail, with a Web link (we need to authenticate these things), to outthere@foxnews.com.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox