One Woonsocket resident caught a lucky break recently when two of his companions were taken away on drug charges, and he got off with just a citation for his tail lights. In any case, if I were him, I'd either start searching my passengers before giving them rides... or making sure all my lights work before leaving home.

The increased number of pedestrian accidents in recent weeks leads us here, at the Sunday Comics, to believe a basic guide to the roadways could be a great service to the fine citizens of Woonsocket. The Sunday Comics would like to look forward, not back--and thus presents this poster, which should, if followed, help the incidence of pedestrian strikes across the board.

Police reported to an accident scene this week to find one the cars involved actually dripping alcohol onto the ground. The suspect then asked to take off her shoes - and when she did, a bag of marijuana fell out. It seems some arrests in Woonsocket just don't require much investigation.

A Coventry man was diverted onto a set of train tracks on River Street this week under instruction from his navigational device. The act got him stuck directly in the train's path just moments before it approached. His leap to safety has us thinking: with our current level of dependence on technology, just how vunerable would we be if the machines could actually conspire against us? 

Have you found your Patch comments deleted after doing things as innocuous as saying a candidate for public office is a sex offender, cursing at other commenters, or insinuating that your opponent only exists as a result of his mother's tryst with a farm animal? Fear not! There's good news! ...well, okay, first there's bad news. Patch editors have every right to delete those comments, without it being even the least violation of your civil rights. But on the bright side, you can prevent your comments from being deleted by simply expressing yourself as though you were a human being, instead of…

Motorcyclists will deck their bikes in bras of every shape and size today before roaming through the streets of Woonsocket to raise awareness for breast cancer--and to contribute the bras to a chain which hopes to be the longest chain of bras in existence. Where are you going to be? Where else could you be?

What did you do during the hurricane? It might not be that simple a question. Non-perishable food and fresh drinking water only gets you so far when you've got a scared, bored, or confused child to contend with. If you noticed a breeze after the sun reappeared, you may have felt the collective sigh of relief of parents all over the city.

When police planned to arrest a suspected drug dealer, they probably weren't expecting him to barricade himself inside his own apartment. Our officers weren't deterred, however; with the precise application of explosives, they managed to get in and get the suspect before he'd even managed to get out of bed. Hopefully he'll remember to think twice before crossing our boys in blue in the future.

How are you preparing for the hurricane? Obviously, there are a lot of differing philosophies... and who better to bring these to you than the characters in the Sunday Comics, last seen interpreting the City Charter?

There are a lot of questions raised by the recent theft of two theater masks from Stage Right. Who would do such a thing? For what purpose? But to me, one question stands out above all things... How do you carry two five-foot-tall masks through the city streets without being noticed?

As parents go back-to-school shopping, a prime thought on thier mind must be the school uniform. We wonder, is the uniform on the faculty's mind as well? We think yes.Hopefully, they'll come up with something with a little less collateral damage than this method.

Knowledge is power, and the fine folks at local farmers markets statewide plan to use this philosophy to bring greater health to our area. They, the  Rhode Island Department of Health, and Johnson and Wales University have developed a program to not only provide low-income families with healthy, local produce, but, with recipes, demonstrations, free samples, and the know-how to use it all to best effect. At three weeks running, things seem to be going fine--and who knows? Maybe it's the start of healthy things for a long time to come.

The state has imposed yet another unfunded liability on the cities and towns under its jurisdiction, this time with a scheduled increase in the amount of city employees' pensions that the municipalities will have to cover. It's apparently very easy to assign bills... and not nearly so simple to pay them.

How is it that different companies can offer the same service for vastly different prices? There are many possible explanations, which speak of things such as economies of scale, business location, public goodwill, quality of execution and perceived value. Before we get into these weighty considerations, however, you have to ask: Are the services you're comparing actually equivalent? Sometimes... not so much.

With the power outages, black smoke, and hot embers flying loose in Woonsocket, residents made the best of an emergency last Tuesday, watching from porches and yards across the city as a landmark burned to the ground. Whole neighborhoods came out to spectate the event, and those close to the scene could be heard hollering as walls came down and things inside exploded. Well, why not? It's was an event only to be seen once in a lifetime, the day Alice Mills, built in 1889, lit the city sky. You might even call it a fire-forged party.

When Woonsocket police conducted a drug raid on a five-bedroom apartment, they were expecting to find perhaps two or three pitbulls-but the ten that greeted them was a total surprise. After all, what do you need ten pitbulls for? What does it take to make that seem like a good idea? "I hear that a pitbull is a good guard dog... hey, do you think if we get ten, we'll be ten times as safe?" Thanks to the hard work and dilligence of our local police officers, however, all ten dogs, along with the owner and eighteen grams of cocaine, were safely removed from the premises, with no harm to human or…

What explanation can there be when a woman flushes her boyfriend's pet fish during an argument--an incident so provocative that he proceeds to kick a hole in the door? Obviously, there were some deep misunderstandings already present in the relationship... misunderstandings focused around the fish? Maybe they were just mad at each other. But this is more amusing.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going; that seems to be the thought process behind Because He Lives Ministries new food distribution methodology. With the soup kitchen shut down until the plumbing can be prepared, they had to come up with a new way to feed the homeless in Woonsocket... and thought, why not bring the food to them? Good work, Because He Lives.

A Woonsocket woman was recently arrested in an incident that was nothing short of baffling: In full view of customers and Loss Provention officers, she allegedly ate food from the store and discarded the wrappers, stuffed other items into the packaging of quilts and backpacks... then abandoned those items in a cart and tried to leave. It's easy to blame the whole incident on the many drugs that were found on her person. But we here at the Sunday Comics have to wonder if there was another layer to the way she just didn't seem to think it all through.

Sometimes, you can't stick with the standard solutions to a problem. Obviously, signs and warnings aren't sufficient to keep truck drivers from striking the train bridge; taking out the bridge is similarly unfeasible. What we need here is a crazy solution. Perhaps... perhaps even something a little Looney.