Headline News: Man Holds Elf Hostage

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The headline in the NaplesDaily News was irresistible: Manbarracades elf in home with baby.

No, I wasn’t drawn to the story because my inner copyeditorgroaned about the misspelling of the word barricades. It was thereference to the elf.

If you’re going to barricade yourself in a home with a baby,why not also include an elf as a bonus hostage? This is Florida, after all, theCandy Land of crazy.

At least when the cops showed up they weren’t confronting aguy who’d holed up with a viscous Skunk Ape or a rabid telemarketer. They canbe problematical. Elves? No sweat.

A quick search on the internet provides numerous ways to safelycoax an elf out of a house: You can offer the elf fried mushrooms, or a prettyflower to smell, or one respondent to that question on Yahoo Answers suggested:“Send in a Russian man in a yellow tuxedo to spray lemon juice all over him.”

I’m thinking the guy who wrote that may have spent too muchtime with the aforementioned mushrooms. And, in any event, the goal was to rescuethe elf, not just lure him out. The baby, too, of course.

The hostage situation took place in Golden Gate Estates, acommunity east of Naples on Florida’s southwest coast. It took sheriff’sdeputies four hours to coax the 30-year-old hostage-taker out. During the standoff,the SWAT team was called in, drones flew overhead to eyeball the house fromabove, K9 dogs sniffed the perimeter, and hostage negotiators did their thing.

Thankfully, even though the Florida man was armed with arifle, it all ended peacefully, and the baby was fine.

The elf, however, was nowhere to be found.

That could be because the misspelling of the word barricadeswasn’t the only error in the headline. It should have read:

Man barricades self in home with baby

STRANGE FACT: Elves come in all shapes, sizes, and with varying powers, but the most famous of all the elves are the ones employed in Santa’s workshop.

Happy

Sad

Excited

Sleepy

Angry

Surprise

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