A Thief's Apology Note and a Hawk Too Fat to Fly

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A thief in Tokyo has returned a watch worth almost three hundred thousand dollars, with a handwritten apology. So today has a theme, and that theme is remorse with a return address. Let's begin.

Gulf News reports that last Thursday evening, a man at a shop in Tokyo's Nakano Broadway asked to try on an Audemars Piguet. Then he left. Still trying it on.

On Sunday, the watch came back by delivery service, in a parcel from Aichi Prefecture, with a handwritten note saying sorry. Staff checked the serial number. Same watch.

The parcel included a sender's name and address, which police suspect are fake. So he was sorry, but within limits. Police are still looking for him. An apology is nice, but it isn't usually how robberies get closed. Otherwise every bank would just have a returns desk.

In Roanoke, Virginia, a red-shouldered hawk was found sitting in a driveway, unable to fly. UPI reports that the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center checked her for broken bones, lead poisoning, head trauma and eye problems. Nothing. Then the veterinarians reached a diagnosis. She was, quote, "too darn fat to fly."

They couldn't feel her keel bone through the fat. She weighed two pounds, nearly a pound more than a typical female.

The person who found her then learned that a neighbor's free-roaming chickens had been disappearing for weeks. The hawk had been eating chickens, then resting in nearby trees. A good plan, right up until the day you try to leave.

She's now on a weight-loss diet. The center is asking people to cover their chicken runs.

In Scotland, a drug case was sentenced on Monday, and the evidence included a lamb.

STV News reports that back in 2023, police stopped a car on the M74 in Glasgow and found about fourteen thousand pounds' worth of cocaine and heroin. They also found a lamb in the back seat, eating a bag of chips. The lamb's name was Pablo. After a Colombian drug lord. So the branding was consistent.

The passenger, John McNeil, told the court they'd found the lamb in the road and were taking it back to its owner. He said the driver was a trainee shepherdess. Police found no evidence of that. Shepherding, it turns out, is a checkable credential.

Both were convicted of possession with intent to supply. McNeil got three hundred hours of unpaid work and a curfew. The driver didn't show up for sentencing, and there's now a warrant for her arrest.

The farmer who owns Pablo says he's fine, quote, "in with his new pet lamb pals." He has seen things. He has eaten chips. He's not discussing it.

In Ethiopia, Italian researchers have documented a close relationship between a bull and a male donkey. The bull is called Achille. The donkey is called Patroclo. Achilles and Patroclus, in Italian. Scholars have been arguing about what exactly was going on between those two for about twenty-five hundred years.

According to UPI, a University of Pisa researcher spotted the pair on his lunch break while he was supposed to be studying monkeys. Over four days of observation, the team recorded fifty-one mountings, plus licking, rubbing and nuzzling. Both animals had other options. They kept choosing each other.

The lead author described it as part of a "broader, selective social relationship." Homer left everyone guessing. The cattle version came with a data table.

Over on AskReddit, people shared the fastest they'd ever seen a new coworker get fired.

One new hire stole a clearly labeled sandwich from the office fridge. It belonged to the HR director, who had just given him the office tour. Security walked him out before his company laptop finished its first Windows update. The laptop has more seniority.

At a Wawa, half the manager's pizza vanished from his office while a new employee did training next door. The manager came back to find the new guy eating pizza. Asked where he got it, the new guy said he'd brought it with him. He hadn't met the manager yet. He was explaining the pizza's origins to the man who ordered it.

On a ship, the captain asked a new cook to move lunch up an hour for the shift schedule. The cook said, "What I do is art. The meal will be ready when it's ready." He was gone that afternoon.

And a teacher described a substitute who taught one forty-five-minute class, went out for coffee and quit. He told the office he'd rather go back to the prison he'd just retired from.

Another thread asked about names so popular that every class had several. One person rode the bus with twenty-seven Jennifers.

Someone's brother is named Chris. On a street of fifteen houses, there was another Chris his age, so they became Little Chris and Big Chris. Then a family moved in with Tiny Chris. Next door was Huge Chris. They believe there was briefly a Ginormous Chris, but it was a short-term residency. What started as a nickname system became a size chart.

Several people asked where all the Codys went. Everyone remembers a classroom full of them, and nobody meets them as adults. One reply suggested they'd been codified.

And a Madison said there were so many Madisons that they started a club. Their parents had all picked the name because it seemed unique.

Alright guys, That’s all I have for you today. Have a great day. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow!