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Alison Cook looks back at 1996: Year of the Rat

Continued from page 8

If the Buddha had had a tummy tuck and some liposuction
Beauty queen Victoria Phuoc, on her husband Dr. Ho Tan Phuoc, a malpractice-suit-plagued plastic surgeon who specializes in Anglicizing the faces and figures of clients: "In the Vietnamese community, they say my husband is a living Buddha."

Fun Couples

Keep that breathless charm
Radio gossipeuse/naked DJ Lucy Lipps ratted to Hard Copy -- and Jerry Jones's biographer -- about the tipsy moves the Dallas Cowboys owner put on her when she interviewed him at an Austin restaurant.

Surprise! They settled out of court!
After three children, six years of marriage -- and 12 of living together part-time while he was still married to his first wife -- Linda Sarofim, the onetime secretary of billionaire investor Fayez, alleged in a $100 million divorce petition that he had assaulted, raped and falsely imprisoned her; then there was the question of child number three's parentage.

Business before pleasure
When former secretary of commerce Robert Mosbacher suddenly filed for divorce, entrepreneur/mega-babe Georgette hastily flew to his side and used all her formidable powers of persuasion to get him to withdraw the petition.

It's always nice when superstars take an interest in our young people
Hakeem Olajuwon, 33, who has an eight-year-old daughter by his long-banished former fiancee, entered into an arranged marriage with Dalia Asafi, the 18-year-old daughter of an Islamic businessman he met at his mosque -- and a recent winner of one of his Dream Foundation college scholarships.

We already feel better about fudging our business mileage
After IRS agent Terrance Catalina's lawyer called him "a patsy who was duped and blinded by love," jurors acquitted him of running a scam in which he and fellow IRS agent Emma Tanner charged thousands of dollars in clothing at Marshall Field's Galleria store, removed the price tags, placed them on clothes of lesser value, then turned them in for credit at the store's Town & Country location.

As long as thee both shall shop
Lori Flores and Sam Kircus, who as two kids from Pasadena wandered the romantic corridors of Gulfgate Mall, got married there -- in front of a crowd of holiday shoppers -- after marrying and divorcing other people.

Wayne's Bad Date, Part I
A misdemeanor charge against Wayne Dolcefino was dismissed after Donna Michelle Kresch, who alleged that he had assaulted her after she went home with him from a nightclub, failed to appear in court.

Wayne's Bad Date, Part II
After Dolcefino dined with Candace Caminati, a paralegal accused of
pilfering documents from John O'Quinn's law firm, they repaired to his townhouse -- where they were mugged in the driveway by two men who struck them repeatedly with a pistol.

You say toh-may-to, I say toh-mah-to
The Houston Police Patrolmen's Union (HPPU) sued its perennial spatting partner, the former Houston Police Officer's Association (HPOA), to block it from using its newly adopted name -- the Houston Police Officer's Union (HPOU) -- charging it was deceptively similar to the HPPU name and that the HPOU wasn't a recognized union.

Metro declined to offer them a free honeymoon trip
State Senator Jerry Patterson of Pasadena, author of the law that allows Texans the right to carry concealed handguns, married tax lawyer Jennifer Kowalik in the senate chamber, joking that his bride might wear a garter belt with a concealed handgun holster.

Gee, now we feel a lot better about him
State Representative Kevin Bailey was cleared of charges he threatened his girlfriend, Linda G. Adams, with a gun given to him by fellow legislator Jerry Patterson; the prosecutor said grand jurors felt the contretemps, in which Adams was at some point armed with a knife, "was a mutual combat situation."

But then, she hasn't met Wayne Dolcefino
That excessively irrepressible Sarah Ferguson was reported in her psychic's tell-all, The Duchess of York: Uncensored, as having had sex with Steve Wyatt in the bushes of her Highgrove estate while she was five months pregnant; and a phone hotline offered tapes of Fergie rating Wyatt as the best of her lovers.

The Year's Scariest Headlines!!!!!!!

All brought to you courtesy of the redoubtable Chronicle:

"Parent Firms of HL&P, Entex to Merge"

"Pierce Elevated Reconstruction Site"

"Man Shot and Wounded by Carload of Girls"

"Fungus Among Us"

"Trouble in the Stubble"

"Elucidation Sought in Fish Excrement

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