Connecting the dots... closing the loop... shattering the illusion....

I regularly read Zay N. Smith's Quick Takes in the Chicago Sun-Times and -- as you can probably tell from the number of times I've cited it in these postings -- I enjoy the column thoroughly.

Mr. Smith, however, has one regular feature in his column that often bugs me: He will come up with an absurd headline and then say only, "There is probably an interesting story behind that."

Now I am a cynical person and I have wondered, from time to time, whether Mr. Smith is simply making up these headlines. This morning, for instance, he wrote:

News Headline: "Underpants rage burns down house."

There is probably an interesting story behind that.

Now I wasn't particularly interested in this item, nor did I have a burning desire to investigate to determine whether it had, in fact, been invented or whether it was an actual story reported somewhere.

But today at lunch, clicking away between bites, I came across this story on a site called Metro.co.uk. The item was indeed headlined, "Underpants rage burns down house." And the story? Through the miracle of cut and paste, it follows:

An angry husband who threw old clothes from his wardrobe in the garden and set fire to them because he could not find his clean underpants accidentally burnt his home down.

Ivo Jerbic, 55, from Prikraj close to the capital Zagreb told police he had flipped out after failing to find any clean underpants in the closet full of old clothes, and had thrown them all in the garden and set fire to them.

He told police: 'My wife never throws anything out, I just lost my temper.'

So we have established that Mr. Smith did not make up today's throwaway headline. Why he thought it might be so interesting, however, is not nearly as clear.

Although, there was another story on the same site, "Viagra-spiked wine nearly kills husband." (With apologies to Mr. Smith) there is probably an interesting story behind that one, too.