The case of the mysterious green Saab that is frequently parked in front of a fire hydrant but never has any tickets on it is closed, more or less.

A couple of months ago my brother and sister-in-law noticed a green Saab - the one pictured above with its license plate blurred out - that was, more often than not, parked on their street in front of a fire hydrant.

Why?, they asked, would the car be parked in front of the fire hydrant so often? And why are there never any tickets on it?

We speculated: undercover cop car, undercover diplomat, someone who has something on the chief of police.

In recent months the car started parking in legal spots, and we more or less forgot about it. Until yesterday, when I got a text message from my sister-in-law: Green Saab is back in front of the hydrant!

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Over the past two weeks, I heard this joke three times:

Q: What do you call a sword swallower with health insurance?
A: A Canadian!

Ba-dump-ching!

In this week’s Show and Tell, I spoke with two American sword-swallowing couples about their experiences with horrific, uninsured throat injuries! Palace of Wonders employees and traveling side-show act Tyler Fyre and Thrill Kill Jill (above) and Centreville, Va. performers Charon Henning and Alex Kensington were kind enough to share their incredible injury stories (and their lame industry jokes).

Says Palace of Wonders museum director James Taylor,

Self-deprecation is a necessary element to the side-show business. Performers use massive amounts of double entendree, because that’s the way to make most of these acts palpatable to the audience: They make it seem funny so that the crowds can get past the hairs standing on the backs of their necks.

Neck hairs, step right up: Click here for a sword swallowing, fire breathing audio slideshow with Tyler and Jill.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Via Capitol Punishment: If you bet $1 on the the Washington Nationals to win the World Series, and they do, you’ll make $199. If you bet $1,000,000, you could buy the Redskins and hire back Vince Lombardi from the dead! Not that I’m trolling for comments, but those were Ron Paul’s odds, and look at him now.