Sprinkles with That?

According to polls, Americans used to prefer vanilla ice cream to all other flavors, but it lost that crown a few years ago. Today, chocolate is the top choice, preferred by almost a third of consumers. Among them, apparently, is a woman who showed up at a Central West End Rally's in the wee hours one morning last month.

The woman ordered chocolate ice cream. When she was told the restaurant had run out, and only had vanilla left, she didn't take the news well. She allegedly had a meltdown, spit on workers, then took a baseball bat to the windows of the restaurant.

Anyone with information about the incident can contact CrimeStoppers online or at 1-866-371-8477.

Billionaire Bidding War

The blaze that burned the roof off the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris horrified the world. But in less than 24 hours, donors big and small had pledged more than $700 million to rebuild the iconic structure, which had withstood wars, a revolution and other disasters since construction was completed nearly eight centuries ago.

By midweek, the total donations and pledges were bumping up close to the $1 billion mark — an astounding gesture of love for a structure that had come to symbolize the heart and soul of a country. It almost got to the point where donation gridlock developed as the nation's billionaires scrambled to get on the scoreboard. When the second-richest man in the country pledged 100 million, one of his rivals was intent on not being outdone. He doubled down with a 200 million-euro pledge.

The national tragedy turned into a platform for social activists to rail about unbridled displays of largess in a country where millions are struggling economically. Not an altogether invalid point, but this wasn't the time or place for it. What matters now is collecting the funds to restore the cathedral as quickly and authentically as possible. If it takes a billionaire bidding war to make it happen, so be it.

Sea Dog

Dogs tend to be famous for their perseverance. Some have walked hundreds of miles in search of their owners. Others have been known to sit for days or weeks on top of the gravesite of their deceased owners. They just don't give up. Then there's the dog in Thailand that inexplicably was sighted swimming in the ocean about 135 miles offshore.

How far the dog swam was unclear. It might have fallen off a boat. But no one doubts he swam a long, long way, possibly for days on end, and refused to give up despite overwhelming exhaustion.

The seas were so rough when the dog approached the oil rig, workers had a hard time fishing him out. They finally succeeded, dried him off to calm his uncontrollable shivering, then gave him plenty of water and warm broth. "His eyes were so sad. He just kept looking up just like he wanted to say, 'please help me,'" rig worker Vitisak Payalaw told CNN.

The dog, nicknamed Boonrod, which means "survivor," eventually was boated to shore for veterinary care. Adoption by Payalaw is pending if no one claims Boonrod.

Branding George Washington

It was revealed last week that, during a guided tour last year of Mount Vernon, George Washington's home, President Donald Trump expressed surprise that his first predecessor didn't choose a better name for the place.

"If he was smart, he would've put his name on it," Trump said, according to three sources who talked to Politico. "You've got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you."

Trump — who, of course, lives and works in a national capital named for Washington — wasn't overly impressed with the home, sources said. He deemed the rooms too small and noted issues typical of very old homes, like uneven floorboards.

"He could have built the place better, he said, and for less money," a source said, citing Trump's commentary.

But Trump reportedly was intensely interested in Washington's wealth. The first president was, by the standards of his time, among the wealthiest people in America because of his land holdings. "That is what Trump was really the most excited about," said one source familiar with the tour.

Foot, Meet Mouth

After Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, publicly defended the concept of white supremacy in an interview published early this year, most of his GOP colleagues ostracized him. But one former Republican official responded by sending King a four-figure political donation: Todd Akin, the former Missouri congressman of "legitimate rape" infamy, whose judgment seems not to have improved since leaving politics.

As The Daily Beast reported recently, Akin's leadership PAC donated $2,000 to King's campaign on Feb. 2. Less than a month earlier, King torpedoed his political career by telling The New York Times: "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?"

Akin knows something of offensive utterances. He torpedoed his own U.S. Senate bid in 2012 by telling an interviewer that rape exceptions to abortion laws aren't necessary because, "if it's legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down." (It doesn't.)

Perhaps these two silver-tongued devils should form a public relations firm together.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH