Cruel and unusual punishment is clearly in the ear of the beholder.

An Urbana, Ohio, man could have avoided a fine for blasting rap music out of his car when a judge gave him the option of spending 20 hours listening to classical music.

But Andrew Vactor decided to pay the $150 fine instead.

“I didn’t have time to deal with that,” he said.

****

Really, crime doesn’t pay.

A thief in the Detroit suburb of Warren walked away from a robbery with his wallet $30 lighter after his victim wrestled him to the ground and emptied his pockets.

The victim had intended only to take back the $50 the thief had stolen, but then figured, hey, what the heck? – and relieved his attacker of all his dough. The mugger then ran off.

****

A man who drunkenly crashed his car into the gate of a water waste-treatment plant in Eau Claire, Wis., chose to stand outside the facility with a sign that read, “I was stupid,” rather than spend time in jail.

Shane McQuillan, 22, said he agreed because, indeed, he was “just being stupid.”

****

Officer, my stove shot me!

A woman in Sekiu, Wash., was stoking the fire in her cast-iron heating stove when she heard a loud bang and felt a searing pain in her leg.

She then realized she had accidentally shoveled a 22-gauge shotgun shell that had spilled into a pile of newspapers into the stove. It went off, shooting her in the leg.

****

It’s a modern day wet nurse.

A Chinese man has been selling his wife’s excess breast milk online because he doesn’t want it to go to waste.

Li Jun, of Hanyang, insisted he wasn’t trying to make a profit.

“If a family is in poverty, we can provide them the milk for free,” he said.