• A family in Coventry, England, are "quite mortified" after calling the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in September to rescue a lizard peeking from underneath a bed in their home. But when officer Vic Hurr arrived at the home, she discovered the "lizard" was not a "lizard at all, it was a pink stripy sock." The dirty imposter sock, about 7 inches long and 2 inches wide, wasn't moving, Hurr noted. "I think the family eventually saw the funny side," an RSPCA spokeswoman told the Independent. "The sock had obviously been there quite a while. It was a typical teenager's bedroom, I suppose."
• The Caving Club at Indiana University explored Sullivan Cave in southern Indiana on Sept. 17, but when they headed back to campus, they forgot one thing: a 19-year-old freshman physics major who had become separated from the group and was trapped behind a locked gate. When the club president realized two days later that a caver had been left behind, members rushed back to save him. "You could tell they were pretty shaken up," the caver told the Indiana Daily Student. "They did near kill me." The student reported he licked moisture off the cave walls during the ordeal and wrote goodbye letters to his family on his iPhone until the battery died.