A note to hotel management: Soccer moms don't swing.
Parents of 11- to 13-year-old soccer players unwittingly checked their daughters into a hotel hosting a New Year's party for more than 200 swingers who had reserved rooms and the downstairs ballroom, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The parents said they were stunned by the flamboyant revelers who glided through the glass atrium, often flashing bare buttocks and breasts before the girls — who had traveled from as far away as South Carolina and Clearwater to attend a five-day soccer tournament.
The skimpy attire of several of the swingers at the Crowne Plaza Hotel-Airport in Orlando was "raunchy, despicable and worse than prostitutes," the parents said.
"We thought we were coming to Orlando, not the Las Vegas Strip," Mark Gilbert, father of a 13-year-old who plays on the Clearwater Chargers, told the Sentinel.
The soccer moms and dads said hotel management didn't say anything about the sexy party or try to keep the swingers away from the girls after the teams booked $92-a-night rooms online for Disney's Soccer Showcase, sponsored by Disney Wide World of Sports.
Paul Camporini told the Sentinel he had to "delicately explain to my Catholic school children that swingers change partners during the evening." Camporini had brought his wife, seventh-grade daughter and eighth-grade son from Safety Harbor.
Camporini, 49, told the paper his son hadn't wanted to travel to watch his sister play at first but "thought it [the swingers' party] was downright hilarious."
"My biggest gripe is that the hotel had two distinctly different groups under the same roof," he told the Sentinel. "A soccer team and middle-aged swingers should not have been booked together."
Several hotel employees, who spoke to the paper on condition of anonymity, said more than 200 swingers lived it up at the Saturday night New Year's Eve party — half the number that attended a year ago.
Ads were posted online for the swingin' soirée and the audacious partygoers — several of whom engage in voyeurism and partner-swapping — came from all over the country, one employee said.
"We're not prudes by any means," Rob Young of Greenville, S.C. — who said his two daughters, Leah, 13, and Lauren, 11, were asking questions that were difficult to answer — told the Sentinel. "We would have liked to have been informed when we checked into the hotel so we could have made other arrangements."
At one point, a manager told girls from the Carolina Elite Soccer Academy to leave the lobby and move into the swimming-pool area, Young said.
"The kids could see through the glass atrium into the ballroom where naked people were dancing," Young told the paper. "There were exposed breasts, thongs and see-through dresses on women who were not wearing any underwear."
The sexy shenanigans seemed to make the kids uncomfortable as well.
"Some lady pulled down her skirt to show a black thong with diamonds," Walker Downs, 15, who was there with his 13-year-old sister, Molly, told the Sentinel.
"It made me uncomfortable because I was there with my family," he said.
— Thanks to Out There reader Bonni F.
Michigan Man Invents the Flying Car
After getting his car stuck in the mud in Michigan's Calhoun County countryside last week, a Paw Paw man weighted the accelerator down with a metal tool box and tried to push it free, according to local WWMT News.
You might say the idea worked: The car ended up speeding off at up to 100 mph with no one at the wheel across the muddy cut bean field.
The rear-wheel drive vehicle became airborne several times as it sped a half-mile across the field — the 29-year-old man gasping and chasing it the whole way — finally slamming into a tree to put an end to the flying-car's frolic.
Deputies decided against giving the man a ticket since no one was hurt, WWMT reported.
— Thanks to Out There readers Dan N. and Kerri M.
Will This Earn Me Extra Cat Treats, Meow?
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Police aren't sure how else to explain it.
But when an officer walked into an apartment Thursday night to answer a 911 call, an orange-and-tan striped cat was lying by a telephone on the living room floor. The cat's owner, Gary Rosheisen, was on the ground near his bed having fallen out of his wheelchair.
Rosheisen said his cat, Tommy, must have hit the right buttons to call 911.
"I know it sounds kind of weird," Officer Patrick Daugherty said, unsuccessfully searching for some other explanation.
Rosheisen said he couldn't get up because of pain from osteoporosis and ministrokes that disrupt his balance. He also wasn't wearing his medical-alert necklace and couldn't reach a cord above his pillow that alerts paramedics that he needs help.
Daugherty said police received a 911 call from Rosheisen's apartment, but there was no one on the phone. Police called back to make sure everything was OK, and when no one answered, they decided to check things out.
That's when Daugherty found Tommy next to the phone.
Rosheisen got the cat three years ago to help lower his blood pressure. He tried to train him to call 911, unsure if the training ever stuck.
The phone in the living room is always on the floor, and there are 12 small buttons — including a speed dial for 911 right above the button for the speaker phone.
"He's my hero," Rosheisen said.
— Thanks to Out There readers Derek H. and Danny C.
Why the World's Furriest Hitchhiker Hates SUVs
VOORHEES, N.J. (AP) — Curiosity didn't kill one cat on a wild ride on the New Jersey Turnpike.
The kitten, now known, for obvious reasons, as Miracle, hitchhiked a ride on the underbelly of a sport utility vehicle just before Christmas. The gray and white feline traveled some 70 miles under the vehicle as it whizzed along the Turnpike on Dec. 23.
"I'm just amazed that the cat didn't fall off or get blown off," Karen Dixon-Aquino, director of the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, told the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill for Tuesday's newspapers.
The association is caring for the furry hitchhiker and plans to put him up for adoption.
The SUV's driver was traveling from Newark to Cherry Hill and didn't know she was giving the kitten a ride until another motorist saw the tabby through a wheel well and flagged the driver over near Interchange 4 in Mount Laurel.
Dixon-Aquino said the cat probably climbed into the guts of the SUV in Newark and was asleep when the journey began. Somehow, the cat avoided being mangled by fan blades and other moving parts as he clung to the car for the ride.
The kitty, estimated to be about 8 or 9 months old, was not unscathed, though.
"He was pretty freaked out," Dixon-Aquino said. "His paws were burnt, one claw was missing and his fur was singed."
— Click in the photo box above to see a pic of the world's furriest hitchhiker.
That's One Two-Faced Serpent!
ST. LOUIS (AP) — For sale: One albino snake. Has two heads. Asking $150,000 or best offer.
The World Aquarium in St. Louis has been home to We, a one-of-a-kind two-headed albino rat snake, since 1999. President Leonard Sonnenschein has decided to sell the reptile, and bidding on reptileauction.com will start at $150,000.
"It's an amazing snake," Sonnenschein said Monday. "When people see it they are awe-struck."
The auction was expected to close within 10 days.
The 6 1/2-year-old snake came to the aquarium's attention when its previous owner distributed a circular offering it for sale days after its birth. The aquarium paid $15,000 knowing most two-headed snakes don't live more than a few months.
But We has survived and thrived. An inch thick and 4 feet long, she is a healthy size for a rat snake. Her body is white, but the heads have a reddish appearance.
We has survived because, unlike some two-headed animals, both mouths are connected to the same stomach, Sonnenschein said.
The snake has been in the spotlight before. In 2004, a disgruntled City Museum worker stole We. Authorities found the snake in the garage of the man's home in Illinois.
"He thought he was going to sell it," Sonnenschein said. "The thing is, it's the only one in the world."
— Click in the photo box above to see a pic of the two-faced serpent.
Yodelayheehoo! Good Lord, I'm Young
BOTHELL, Wash. (AP) — He's only 4 feet tall and 8 years old, but Aidan Gold is an experienced mountaineer who has left tracks on peaks in the Cascades, the Alps and the Himalayas.
Aidan climbed the 20,300-foot Island Peak in the Himalayas in November.
That was the high point of the family's four-month climbing and hiking adventure, which took them from Switzerland to Katmandu, Nepal.
Aidan and his dad also reached the peak of 10,400-foot Haustock and 13,400-foot Monch in the Alps, and 17,200-foot Awi Peak near Everest. The whole family, including 5-year-old Janick, made it to the 17,700-foot Everest base camp.
Aidan said the toughest stretch for him was a 45-degree face of rock and ice on Haustock. "It's the worst 3,000 feet I've ever done," he said.
Warren Gold said he wanted to give his sons an appreciation of a world less touched by humans. For his part, Aidan says he likes climbing for the challenge ... and the view.
— Click in the photo box above to see a pic of the mini climber.
Excuse Me, Uncle Sam, I'm Not Dead
CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — Thelma Saberniak has a message for Uncle Sam: She's not dead.
The 82-year-old learned of her supposed demise when she tried to apply for Medicare's new prescription drug benefit last month. She also has lost her monthly Social Security checks.
"I supposedly died Nov. 19," she told The Times of Munster for a Sunday story.
Social Security records show Saberniak recently moved to Arizona, even though she has lived in a Chicago-area nursing home for two years.
Carmen Moreno, a spokeswoman for the Social Security Administration in Chicago, said there is no way to tell how the mistake was made. She said once Saberniak's identity can be verified, the agency will work to restore her benefits "expeditiously."
"I lie awake at night not knowing whether they'll recognize that I am alive," Saberniak said.
With $12,000 in medical bills, Saberniak said she's borrowing money from children and drawing from her savings.
Compiled by FOXNews.com's Andrew Hard.
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