If it feels like not a lot makes sense in the news these days, relax. The absurdity has been going on since before there were newspapers. As evidence, these actual news stories from the late 90’s.

Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.

A man in Johannesburg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other’s head.

The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.

A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene, 14 pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain.

Business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied — only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message, “he’s lying,” was placed in the copier and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn’t telling the truth. Believing the “lie detector” was working, the suspect confessed.