Good morning,
Whitewater’s weather forecast for today calls for a sunny day with a high of sixty-one degrees.
There’s a regular school board meeting tonight, with open session scheduled to begin at 7 PM.
I’ve an update to a story about Debbie Millier, a third-tier con artist, but a first-tier screwball. In 2008, I posted about Miller’s attempt to defraud a restaurant, by claiming that she found a rat in her food. Here’s what I wrote, in a post entitled, “Ratology“:
Most people can tell the difference between a wild rat and a white laboratory rat, but apparently not every alleged con artist sees the importance of the difference.
The Wisconsin State Journal reports that Debbie Miller, aged 41, of Appleton
….claimed to find the rat in her lunch April 17 as she ate at the upscale Seasons Restaurant in Grand Chute, according to the criminal complaint.
She threatened to alert the media unless the owners paid her $500,000, the complaint said.
The owners turned the rat over to their insurance company. Investigators there determined the rodent was a white laboratory rat, not a wild rat, the complaint said.
Tests also suggested the rodent had been cooked in a microwave, but the restaurant doesn’t use microwaves in cooking.
(Emphasis added)
I am a blogger, and not a certified, credentialed ratologist, but even I could easily tell a lab rat from a wild one. What’s more, I could tell the difference between convection and microwave cooking. If I could tell, a restaurant could probably tell, too.
Next time — a Weber grill, perhaps.
There’s a follow up story, to Miller’s nutty fraud, that reveals her fate: “Wis. woman gets 9 mos. for extortion plan with rat.”