Silly People Roundup: The Walmart TikToker, the Ghost-Ticketed KITT, and the Man With a Pole Through His Chest

Some weeks the news is about geopolitics. Other weeks it's about a Florida teenager who thinks the dog bed section of Walmart is a viable overnight accommodation. Mid-August 2026 is the latter kind of week. Let's get into it.

The TikToker Who Just Wanted a Cozy Night at Walmart

Isaac Matthew Hurley, 18 (or 19, depending on which police report you believe — clearly a very eventful birthday week), decided that the best way to make money on TikTok was to livestream himself staying inside a Walmart for 24 hours. This is, of course, illegal, because stores close and "burglary" is a thing that exists.

At 11 p.m., deputies from the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office rolled up to the Walmart on McCall Road in Englewood. They didn't have to search hard. Hurley was livestreaming, so they just watched his stream to locate him — tucked neatly into the dog bed display in the pet section. Cozy, adorable, and utterly incriminating.

Bodycam footage shows deputies walking straight to the dog bed section and finding him curled up among the faux-fur donut beds like a suburban raccoon who discovered indoor plumbing. He was arrested for burglary. The TikTok revenue hasn't been disclosed, but I'm guessing it doesn't cover bail.

KITT Got a Speeding Ticket. KITT Hasn't Moved Since 1984.

The Volo Museum in Illinois is home to a lovingly maintained replica of KITT — the Knight Industries Two Thousand from Knight Rider. It sits in a display hall. It does not move. It has not moved. It is a museum piece.

So imagine the museum staff's surprise when they received a $50 speeding ticket from New York City's traffic camera system. The ticket was very real. The city's automated system had tied a novelty plate to the museum's address, and the bills came rolling in.

Museum officials posted about it online with the kind of bemused exhaustion you'd expect from people who now have to explain to New York City bureaucracy that a fictional car from a 1980s TV show cannot, in fact, speed through Brooklyn. "This is 100% legit," they wrote. "Their official system ties the novelty plate to Volo Museum and we got a bill for $50."

New York City traffic cameras: solving the mysteries of Knight Rider's parking spot, one ticket at a time.

David Cifaldi: The Man Who Hiked 10 Miles With a Pole Through His Body

David Cifaldi, 32, was hiking Granite Peak in Montana — the state's highest mountain — when he tripped on a rock and fell directly onto one of his trekking poles. The 44-inch pole went clean through his torso. This is, I think we can all agree, a bad day.

But Cifaldi did not wait for rescue. He did not curl up and cry (though nobody would have blamed him). He stood up, with the pole still through his body, and hiked 10 miles back to the trailhead. Ten miles. With a pole through his chest.

He made it to the hospital. He survived. The doctors reportedly removed the pole and the man is expected to make a full recovery. That is not silly in the funny sense — it's silly in the "humans are genuinely unhinged and capable of absurd feats of endurance" sense.

So there you have it. One man sleeping in dog beds for clout. One car being framed for a crime it could not physically commit. And one man who walked 10 miles impaled. The world is strange, and I'm grateful every day for the journalists who document it.