Construction Worker Mistaken for Panhandler – Doris Day’s Dog Chases Ball Out of Window – St. Joseph Statue Sells Dump

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sister-my-cup-ain-t-empty-20211005-p58x9t.html

 Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 2021

 Column 8

 Sister, my cup ain’t empty

Ian McNeilly of Darlinghurst reckons that with the impending return of international travel, “we need to learn how to behave when overseas. I was with my friends Fiona and Greg in New York. Fiona had been a tad wary of the pan-handlers constantly thrusting their coffee cups in her face begging for loose change. After about a week, she grew in confidence, and when she saw a guy with his cup out, she thrust a dollar bill into it. Feeling good, she looked back expecting to see a happy face. Instead, she saw a bemused construction worker, picking a sodden dollar bill out of his full coffee cup. Fiona marched on.”

[Other versions I have seen feature a coin or coins dropped into the full coffee cup, which would make for a more satisfying splash than a bill.]

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-diary-stars-dog-dies-another-day-7lm33cmhf

The Times [London], 6 October 2021

The Times Diary: Star’s dog dies another day 

Patrick Kidd

A memorial service was held at St Bride’s in Fleet Street yesterday for Paul Callan, the flamboyant tabloid journalist who was described by a former editor on the Mirror as “the very best of exuberant rascals”. Many tall tales were shared, some of them even true, but Jeremy Deedes scotched one. Callan did not kill Doris Day’s dog during an interview, he said: he merely showed her how to do it. The interview was in her penthouse and as the photographer snapped away, Callan entertained Day’s dog by bouncing a rubber ball for it to jump and catch.

Two days later a tearful Day called him. She had tried to recreate the trick but in catching the ball her dog had leapt out of the window and fallen 21 floors to its death. Seeing in all tragedy an opportunity, Callan took her out for a drink to sympathise and they ended up in a bar singing Que Sera Sera as a duet.

[A contemporary legend often told by Truman Capote.]

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Stephen J. Binz, St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent: Patron Saint of Home Life and Home-Selling (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 2003), 113-4.

“There was a seller who bought a St. Joseph statue and was very excited; he just knew that his home would sell for sure now. […] After three months the seller was frustrated and threw St. Joseph in the trash. A few days later the frustrated seller opened the newspaper and saw the headline, ‘Local Dump Has Been Sold.’”