Scissors

Within five minutes of meeting the Baltimore-area writer and performer Susan Mele, there are several interesting things you are likely to learn about her: In 1999, she was chosen as the official Nabisco Snacker for the state of California, based on a touching and profound monologue she composed about a Wheat Thin. That same year, she was a finalist on the Nickelodeon cable channel's contest for the funniest mom in America. (She and her husband have four children, all of whom, luckily, share their mother's penchant for wearing oversized elf hats in public places.

Within five minutes of meeting the Baltimore-area writer and performer Susan Mele, there are several interesting things you are likely to learn about her: In 1999, she was chosen as the official Nabisco Snacker for the state of California, based on a touching and profound monologue she composed about a Wheat Thin. That same year, she was a finalist on the Nickelodeon cable channel's contest for the funniest mom in America. (She and her husband have four children, all of whom, luckily, share their mother's penchant for wearing oversized elf hats in public places.

A man armed with scissors robbed an Ellicott City pizza restaurant early yesterday morning, Howard County police said.The robber walked into the Pizza Hut at 3570 St. John's Lane about 1: 30 a.m. and demanded money from employee Ryan Frisbie, said Sgt. Steven Keller of the Howard County Police Department.When Frisbie said he had no money, the robber made him lie on the ground. The man went through Frisbie's pockets and took the store keys and Frisbie's personal keys. The man then slashed Frisbie's car tires with the scissors.

A student at Glen Burnie High School was stabbed in the head yesterday afternoon during a scuffle with two other students outside the school, officials said. The victim, a 17-year-old male sophomore whose name was not released, was stabbed in the head with a pair of scissors immediately after dismissal, said Bob Mosier, an Anne Arundel County schools spokesman. Anne Arundel County paramedics were called about 2:15 p.m. to the school in the 7500 block of Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., where the student was suffering from a wound to the head, said Battalion Chief Matthew Tobia, a Fire Department spokesman.

STOP!" MY SISTER squealed as she grabbed the scissors, poised inches from my hair. "You promised you would give the new look a try."I lied, I said, as I headed for the den in search of pinking shears."All you have to do is wait for the layers to all grow out to one length. It takes patience," she pleaded.I looked in the mirror. A disproportionate amount of my hair was pointing west. I went in pursuit of the cuticle scissors."I thought we agreed that you wanted a change. After all, you've had the same hairstyle since 1979.

YOU GET TO a certain age, your dreams change. The other night, I had the most wonderful dream about a haircut I got at a place called Sal's.In this dream, Sal himself was a small, frail-looking man in a white barber shirt who wheezed softly in your ear as he cut your hair. He worked in his two-chair barbershop with his partner Angelo, who chain-smoked Luckies and studied the Racing Form and never seemed to have any customers.There was wild, minimalist beauty to Sal's.It wasn't located on the second level of the mall between Eddie Bauer and The Nature Company, but next to Wilson's Pharmacy.

TO DEMONSTRATE his resolve to trim spending in Baltimore County, council President Kevin B. Kamenetz brandished a pair of scissors after County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger presented his $1.69 billion operating budget. Without hesitation, Mr. Ruppersberger strode over to Mr. Kamenetz, asked for the scissors and pocketed them. That little drama may portend future action -- or little of it -- on the county budget.After struggling through recession and population decline earlier this decade, Baltimore County is in excellent fiscal health.

ALLEYS SEEM TO BE the correct thing to install these days in new subdivisions or communities. City planners have gone back to the tried and true. They have rediscovered what a child reared in an old city knows. Back alleys are the place to be on a summer day.The back alleys I knew as a child really came to life this time of the year. At least once an afternoon you heard the jingle of the horse bells and the clip-clop of the hoofs.The alley street a-rabs aren't as numerous these days as they once were.

CONCORD, N.H. -- Did you kiss your corkscrew goodbye at Boston's Logan International Airport? Surrender your Swiss army knife at Providence's T.F. Green Airport? Take leave of your trowel at Connecticut's Bradley International? Relinquish your rolling pin at New Hampshire's Manchester-Boston Regional? If so, the odds are good that John Supry has the items. Or at least he had them before he sold them at rock-bottom prices for the greater good of the Granite State. And yes, people have tried - and often failed - to carry rocks on board aircraft.

A stun gun ended Thursday's standoff at a Baltimore police station, but not before a suspect had tried to hang himself, hit an officer in the head with a 3-foot-long halogen light bulb, and managed to take a civilian worker hostage using a pair of scissors, according to police charging documents. Rodney Bethea, 21, who has at least two burglary convictions, had been arrested in connection with a marijuana possession case Thursday morning and was taken to the Northeastern District for processing and questioning, charging documents state.

FORTY IS the last age a woman can be photographed in a wedding dress without the unintended Diane Arbus subtext," says somebody in the new movie version of Sex and the City. (This got almost as big a laugh as when Sarah Jessica Parke r is handed an iPhone to make an emergency call. She looks at it in disgust, hands it back and says, "I can't work this!") So one of the early summer's big hits, Sex and the City is fading a bit. The movie broke records in its first weekend, a whopping $57 million.

A young woman waits demurely in a stark room. Before her on a table sit scissors and one half of a pair of Crocs. For the next two minutes and 35 seconds, as a jaunty Cole Porter score plays, she takes scissors to shoe, shredding the rubbery yellow thing into sad little slivers. The slivers she pulverizes in a blender. A smile never leaves her face. The dismemberment, enjoyed by more then 60,000 people on YouTube, comes compliments of the folks behind Ihatecrocs.com, an Internet site dedicated to the elimination of Crocs and those who think that their excuses for wearing them are viable.

I have had some unfortunate home haircuts in my day, captured in school photos for the amusement of future generations. There's one in particular that stands out. I am about 8 years old, in a maroon polyester dress with a drooping collar that manages to create a "beagle-ears" effect. But it is my hair that commands attention; I am sporting startlingly asymmetrical bangs that slope sharply down my forehead. I remember sitting for home haircuts on a stool in my basement; hair dripping wet, a towel pinned around my shoulders.

In the movie version of Augusten Burroughs' memoir, Running With Scissors, the writer-producer-director, Ryan Murphy, best-known for creating FX's Nip/Tuck, uses a cascade of goofy-creepy episodes from Burroughs' early life for gross-out comedy and psychodrama and even grosser sentimentality. It's a clever variation on you'll laugh, you'll cry entertainment - here, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll gag. But it's a bit too much like a TV series: That '70s Show becomes "That '70s Freakshow."

CONCORD, N.H. -- Did you kiss your corkscrew goodbye at Boston's Logan International Airport? Surrender your Swiss army knife at Providence's T.F. Green Airport? Take leave of your trowel at Connecticut's Bradley International? Relinquish your rolling pin at New Hampshire's Manchester-Boston Regional? If so, the odds are good that John Supry has the items. Or at least he had them before he sold them at rock-bottom prices for the greater good of the Granite State. And yes, people have tried - and often failed - to carry rocks on board aircraft.

Recently some of our frozen meat and seafood was confiscated at the airport in Los Cabos, Mexico. How can we find out what food items are allowed from the United States and in what form? The following information comes from the office of the Mexican secretary of agriculture: If you are transporting meat across the border, it should be frozen and kept in its original packaging so that it can be identified, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture stamp clearly visible. You are allowed a maximum of 15 kilograms (33 pounds)

The procedure is always the same -- a man walks into a Sally's Beauty Supply store, whips out a trash bag from his pants pocket and demands that a clerk at the counter fill it up.With scissors.In the past month, at least five Sally's stores in Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties have been robbed by a pair of unarmed beauty bandits who have absconded with more than $3,000 in hairdressing scissors and electric hair clippers.At least two of the stores -- in Glen Burnie and Bowie -- have been hit three times each since Aug. 5, said Mike Povendo, spokesman for the Denton, Texas-based beauty supply chain.

In the movie version of Augusten Burroughs' memoir, Running With Scissors, the writer-producer-director, Ryan Murphy, best-known for creating FX's Nip/Tuck, uses a cascade of goofy-creepy episodes from Burroughs' early life for gross-out comedy and psychodrama and even grosser sentimentality. It's a clever variation on you'll laugh, you'll cry entertainment - here, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll gag. But it's a bit too much like a TV series: That '70s Show becomes "That '70s Freakshow."

Police officer killed A Baltimore police officer was killed and another officer was seriously injured when two marked patrol cars collided a block from the Southwestern District station house. Anthony A. Byrd, an 11-year veteran, was pronounced dead at St. Agnes Hospital shortly after the 2:20 a.m. accident near Parksley Avenue and Stafford Street, just off Frederick Avenue. Waterfront project to begin Construction is to begin this summer on Harbor Point, the long-contaminated former site of a chromium plant and the largest undeveloped tract along the Inner Harbor.

Go ahead, start putting your summer-reading list together. If nothing else, it'll at least convince you that your vacation is just around the corner. Some like to use their summers to dive into old and not-so-old classics. Satisfaction is guaranteed in Pride and Prejudice, Dracula, Anna Karenina, Catch-22 or Lonesome Dove. However, if your summer means taking chances, here are some of the notable new books that will be on shelves this summer: The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson. A New York Times correspondent writes a thriller about a CIA operative who infiltrates al-Qaida.