Nina In New York: 4 News Stories You May Have Missed This Week

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

The world got a new Pope from Argentina. We're still guzzling soda like a bunch of degenerate sugary drink fiends. Kickstarter funded a movie to be based on mid-2000s TV hit "Veronica Mars." The former mayor of Detroit was convicted of corruption and racketeering and generally being a gangster-type who would make Henry Hill blush.

But more importantly:

• A home health aide to an elderly woman in Norwalk was laid off after declining to work longer hours. But she felt so strongly about her employer that she couldn't help but leave a piece of herself behind. That is to say, she made a nice BM, wrapped it up and placed it in both the woman's stove and refrigerator. Even more disturbing, the feces were discovered when someone in the home turned on the stove. I gag just thinking about it. Of course, the health aide denies it, but it's hard to imagine why someone would package up poop and place it in his or her own stove and fridge. Either way, I'm hoping this leads to a scientific inquiry into the DNA of the doody, which sounds like it could be a really interesting branch of forensic work. Remember our phantom toilet terrorist? He shall be a phantom no longer.
• Also on the subject of excretion (I don't make this stuff up, I just carefully curate it), the president of the LIRR referred to an elevator at the Woodside station as a "vertical urinal" due to the extraordinary frequency with which people pee in it. This confirms all of my fears and paranoias regarding MTA elevators, which is both gratifying and disappointing as I am eight months pregnant and suddenly finding myself eyeing them with more interest lately. The quote is a bit confounding, not because it's curious as to why a person would insist on peeing in an elevator, but because I was pretty sure all urinals were vertical. If that's incorrect, I feel pretty confident that I don't care to know about the other kind.
• There's another dolphin in town! I'm going to love him and cuddle him and he will be my best friend and I shall call him Humphrey. No, Orson. Wait, hang on. Sam Seaborn! Get it? I'm on a Netflix "West Wing" kick and it's working for me.
• I think people are finally done doing the Harlem Shake. Goats, on the other hand, will always be on trend.