Rude Awakening | Harsh

• Former English soccer star Gary Mabbutt, 57, traveled to South Africa in July to visit his daughter, who works at Kruger National Park, but it wasn't the exotic big game that left the most lasting impression on him.

While he was sleeping, he later told the BBC, " . . . a rat has come into the bedroom, climbed into the bed and has decided to chew on my foot," which Mabbutt couldn't feel because he suffers from Type 1 diabetes and has little feeling in his foot. The rat "made quite a big hole in my toe, going down to the bone, and ate underneath my foot."

Mabbutt was finally alerted to the rodent's presence when it bit his thumb and he saw his bloody foot. He flew back to the United Kingdom, where he underwent surgery and spent a week in the hospital.

"All the opponents that I've played against," he said, "and I finally get taken out by a rat." [BBC, 8/27/2018]

• Lifelong New York Knicks fan Evan Perlmutter, 33, finally hit the wall with his team. Fed up that the Knicks had been promising a better future for a decade, he told Bleacher Report, Perlmutter posted a listing on eBay to sell his fandom.

In the description, he promised to root for the team of the auction winner's choosing and "burn no less than three articles of Knicks memorabilia."

Sure enough, he got a bite: James Riedel, 23, of Orange County, California, paid $3,500 for Perlmutter's fandom on Aug. 24, converting Perlmutter into a Los Angeles Lakers fan.

Perlmutter plans to attend a few Lakers games with Riedel and record his destruction of his Knicks gear for Riedel's YouTube channel. [Bleacher Report, 8/27/2018]