"A large woman, she was eventually able to get the slight Haffey into a chokehold"

a friend of mine, k.m., sent me an article from cnn that ive been meaning to post about a nurse, in portland, who strangled an intruder to death with her bare hands.

i'll allow you a moment to process that.

(i wonder if she's a midwife, because hands that are strong enough to strangle an adult man are the kind of hands i want ripping a baby out of my body. ahem.)

anyway, today, as i was surfing msn i saw an article about a nurse who strangled to death a man hired by her estranged husband to kill her. my first thought was "what the hell kind of nursing schools are these women going to" followed quickly by "... and the plot thickens."

there are so many things i love about these articles. if i were to list them numerically, they would go something like this:

1) to put my nancy drew skills to work, i found it odd that the original article didnt mention her marital status because as we all know, thats something news outlets love to point out (along with age and weight, both of which made the first article). i keep expecting to see an article congratulating a 3rd grade spelling bee winner that reads like this "madison, aged 8, 52 lbs and single, won this months mercy elementary school spelling bee by correctly spelling the word hepaticocholangiocholecystenterostomies. congratulations!"

so, when i saw this little gem, which pointed out that our heroine was in the process of getting a nasty divorce, things made a bit more sense.

2) our antagonist found his potential hit man at an adult video store where they worked together. its nice to know that sticky fingers videos is now a full service store. although i guess if you were a custodian at a porn store, hit man is a step up.

3) and our hit man - would you hire a hit man who had previously served time for assault, burglary, robbery and conspiracy to commit aggravated murder? theoretically, i would like to be able to get away with murdering my spouse, so, if ever there was a time not to cut corners, its when youre hiring a man to kill your wife. by the way, what exactly makes it "aggravated?" where is my legal department?

4) and finally, i heart that our heroine is unavailable to comment on her attempted murder, because girlfriend "was out of town attending a nursing conference and did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment." talk about being blasé. the only better answer would have been that she was getting her nails did.