Comments & Curiosities:

Are you a good person? I am, pretty much. I expect good days and bad days, good luck and bad, all of which knocks on my door now and then, which is why they call it “life.”

But on Tuesday of this week, the news gods decided to send more good fortune my way than anyone could expect or should deserve.

For someone whose job description reads, “Find weird stuff; write about it,” the front page of Tuesday’s Daily Pilot was a winning Twelve-State PowerBall Lotto ticket, the World Series trophy, the World Cup and finding $450,000 in a brown paper bag that no one claims after 30 days all rolled into one.

The headline, which perhaps you saw, read “Resident’s member is saved from ring.”

“That’s funny,” I thought. “It is, of course, a double entendre,” I thought. “It certainly doesn’t mean, you know, that — but definitely amusing and obviously one of those quirky verbal accidents. But I wonder what it really means?” I thought.

Just then I was distracted by my espresso maker, which was hissing, which is a sure sign that the steamed milk is totally steamed.

As I spooned the milk onto the espresso, plus a little Splenda, I tried to run down the possibilities. “Resident’s member is saved from ring.” Hmm.

My best guess was that it had to do with an aging boxer living in a group home who was forced to climb back into the ring because he lost his Medicare coverage but then some local pol came to the rescue.

“Nope, too convoluted,” I thought. When I returned to the paper, it was just one more stroke of luck that I didn’t have a mouthful of espresso when I read past the headline. If I had, the kitchen, family room and one corner of the dining room would have been fully espresso-ized from the crown moulding down.

There it was, just beneath the headline, plain as day. Plainer maybe: “Firefighters dodge sparks as they saw through metal ring into which man had inserted his penis. He used the weight in effort to make it longer, but it got stuck for three days.”

Well alrighty then. Mystery solved, case closed, no boxer, no group home, no Medicare. The headline meant what it said and said what it meant. Where does one begin?

As stories go, this was way different than the normal fare we’re used to, like the other top stories that morning — “Chronic Tacos’ plans denied” and “Couple suing Newport.” At 7 a.m. or so, those headlines are interesting, even intriguing.

But “Resident’s member is saved from ring” is in a league of its own and we’re not talking about Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and women’s baseball here.

By Tuesday night, the story hit the L.A. TV news then went national, then international, including the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Australia.

The Tale of the Ring was irony overload as I have never seen irony overload. Our dedicated police and courts reporter, Joseph Serna, tried to be as serious and respectful as he could, but no matter how hard he tried, the story just got better and better.

“…Costa Mesa Fire Department’s Urban Search and Rescue squad were summoned early Tuesday morning to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach to save another man’s penis from perishing.”

Moment, please. You mean when something like this happens, they call the Urban Search and Rescue squad? Being stuck in this contraption seems bad enough, but the guy was lost on top of that? I will do or pay whatever it takes to hear the 911 call on this.

“Please, hurry, can you send someone right away? I’m stuck in this…thing and I’m not sure where I am. I see an ARCO station, a Peet’s Coffee and either a golf course or a park. Hurry, please. It’s bad.”

And could someone explain, they were summoned to Hoag, “…to save another man’s penis from perishing?” Does this happen a lot? Or was this the second “it’s-stuck- and-I’m-lost” call that day?

When they got to the details of how the most delicate of operations in the history of delicate operations was actually done, so was I — done, finished, gasping for air, begging them to stop.

“Firefighters had to don full surgery garb,” the story went on, “including masks and scrubs. The men constructed a watering system to keep the sparks from the sawing — which were flying half-way across the room — from injuring the patient…The delicate procedure took two hours.”

Let’s review. A team of Costa Mesa firefighter-urban- search-and-rescuers trade their turnout gear for surgical scrubs and saw away at a metal ring, really carefully, with what is essentially a water-cooled power saw, with water schpritzing and sparks flying, for two hours.

What do they tell the other ER patients — most of whom are there for shortness of breath or abdominal pain — about what sounds like either welders or a tree-trimming crew working behind the curtain at station-seven?

The next morning, Battalion Chief Scott Broussard said the call was decidedly different, but all in a day’s work for the men and women in the really big red trucks.

“If we’re cutting people out of some kind of building, or if we’re cutting right up next to somebody’s flesh and don’t damage his flesh, then it’s a good day,” he said.

Yes, I suppose that is true.

And there you have it. Is Tuesday’s Tale of the Ring the best headline ever? Hard to say.

There have been so many contenders over the years, in print and on the Internet — “Sisters reunited after 18 years in checkout line” “High school dropouts cut in half,” “Blind woman gets kidney from dad she hasn’t seen in years,” “Kicking babies considered healthy.”

All I know is, it’s days like Tuesday that keep me going. Careful with that saw. Seriously. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected].