MONDAY, DECEMBER 19 This week of holy birthdays, sassy gays, and cocaine in remarkable places kicks off in North Korea, where today the Korean Central News Agency announced the death of Kim Jong-il, the country's infamous dictator, who was killed Saturday by a heart attack. In response, his whole country went insane. As Agence France-Presse reports, today's announcement was met with scenes of "indescribable sorrow": hysterical people pounding the ground, ruling party leaders banging tables and sobbing, "schoolchildren, workers, and the elderly alike prostrate with grief in front of portraits of Kim Jong-il." "How can I express all the sorrow?" said a weeping soldier to China Central Television. "I can't speak anymore." A contrasting view comes from the Daily NK, an online newspaper run by North Korean defectors. "There are armed soldiers on the street every four metres," said an anonymous source in the northeastern city of Musan to the Daily NK. "Military and intelligence officers are on guard everywhere." Also: "The source said people were afraid in case they did not show enough zealotry in their mourning, recalling punishments meted out to some after Kim Il-sung's death 17 years ago." Whatever the case, all singing, dancing, and other entertainment has been banned until December 29, until which time North Koreans are required to do nothing but mourn.

•• Meanwhile, the United States enjoyed its own confusing response to the death of Kim Jong-il, courtesy of the many people who took to Twitter to express shock and sadness at the death of Lil' Kim.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20 The week continues with the promised cocaine in remarkable places, the first instance of which comes from South Carolina, where a man died after eating the cocaine stashed in his brother's butt. Details come from Charleston TV station WCIV, which reports the two brothers—23-year-old Deangelo Mitchell and 20-year-old Wayne Mitchell—were taken into custody on allegations that they had drugs in their car. "Police [said] there were additional drugs hidden in 23-year-old Deangelo Mitchell's backside," reports WCIV. "Officers said Deangelo Mitchell convinced his brother to swallow the ounce of cocaine to hide the evidence. He died soon afterward." With Deangelo Mitchell already bonded out of jail on the drug charge, today police told WCIV that he'd soon be arrested again on charges of involuntary manslaughter.

••Speaking of cocaine being where it shouldn't be but so often is: Today also brought a story in the UK Telegraph, about the field study in northwest England that found traces of cocaine on 9 out of 10 public baby-changing tables. "The tests, carried out by using specialist wipes, found that 92 per cent of the 100-plus units examined carried traces of the class A substance," reports the Telegraph. "They included facilities based in public toilets in shopping centres, hospitals, police stations, courts, and churches." The moral: Trying to keep coke off flat surfaces in semiprivate public spaces is like trying to keep people off coke—so close to impossible it might as well be. Also, people who like coke like it enough to snort it off a surface explicitly designed for the handling of fecal matter.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21 The week continues in Utah, where today a man was booked into Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of multiple counts of child sexual abuse, after being brought to the police's attention through a truly ludicrous series of events. As Utah's KSL News reports, the saga began very late Monday night/very early Tuesday morning, when 34-year-old Paul Kunzler and his 27-year-old housemate were hanging out in the kitchen of their Taylorsville home and saw a mouse, which the housemate tried to shoot with his 9 mm handgun. Instead, the bullet went through the wall and struck a third housemate—a 28-year-old man who'd been minding his own business in the bathroom when he found himself shot in the chest. Around 2 a.m., cops arrived to investigate a report of an accidental shooting, with the accidentally shot man rushed to the hospital in serious condition (since upgraded to stable). Then came the real story: "During an ensuing search of the house, officers found a 13-year-old girl hiding in a basement closet," reports KSL. "After further questioning, investigators learned Paul Kunzler and the 13-year-old had been having a relationship for four months." Which brings us to today's arrest of Kunzler on two counts of rape of a child, three counts of sodomy of a child, and three counts of sexual abuse of a child. The moral: Buy a fucking mousetrap. (JUST KIDDING! DON'T DATE KIDS!)

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22 In better news, the week continues in Minnesota, where yesterday state senator Amy Koch took a break from her pushing-for-a-constitutional-amendment-to-outlaw-gay-marriage schedule to admit to and apologize for an adulterous affair with a senate staffer. Today brought the official response from Minnesota gays, in the form of a wonderfully bitchy apology. "On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage," reads the letter from John Medeiros, as reported by City Pages. "We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry." All hail John Medeiros!

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23 Nothing happened today, so Last Days is forced to share a story from earlier in the week, featuring a trio of teenage girls found guilty of giving a high-school classmate a birthday cake frosted with human feces. Details come from the Smoking Gun: "The three young women—Mayra Flores, 19; Ana Mireles, 18; and Sandra Ortiz, 18—copped to reckless endangerment and conspiracy charges stemming from the repulsive prank... According to a criminal complaint, on March 23 the four pranksters gave the victim a cake for her birthday... [and] 'kept trying to get her to eat the cake in front of them, until she finally ate a small piece,' a state trooper reported." It gets worse: Upon being taken home after school, the cake was eaten by the victim's mother and three siblings, all of whom agreed the cake didn't taste very good and threw it out. Only after the discarded cake started to stink up the garbage did the victim present the reeking remains to school authorities. "During questioning by the school's principal, Flores, Mireles, [and] Ortiz admitted 'that they placed feces on the cake as a prank,'" reports the Smoking Gun. "A subsequent lab test revealed that the cake tested positive for the presence of E. coli, confirming the fact that feces is present in the cake." On Monday, the three fecal pranksters were sentenced to 22 months probation and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service. By yesterday, multiple internet commenters had blamed the prank on The Help, which, apparently, prominently features a feces pie. (We smell Oscar!) Today, Last Days promises that this is the last story involving fecal desserts we'll report for the rest of the year.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24 As every-one who was ever a kid knows, having a birthday close to Christmas blows. So the week continues with condolences for those cursed with Christmas Eve birthdays, including American television magnate/preeminent Kardashian pimp Ryan Seacrest (born on this day in 1974), Motörhead screamer/bassist Lemmy (1945), and Twilight author/most popular Mormon in history Stephenie Meyer (1973).

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25 Nothing happened today, unless you count the Merry Christmas enjoyed by millions of Christians and the perfectly lovely Sunday enjoyed by millions of atheists.

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