Weird News: Man Accosted For Cleaning Up Walmart – The Paper
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Walmart employees in Maine called police to stop a man from cleaning up garbage that the store had allegedly dumped.
According to Central Maine, Bethel resident Tony Bennett says he’s been asking the managers at two Walmarts—in nearby towns Mexico and Oxford—to clean up the large amounts of trash that have been piling up near the stores.
Last week, while visiting one of the locations, he noticed that trash piles had been pushed off the parking lot and down the nearby river embankment. “They raked from 20 feet to the pavement all the way to bank and they dumped it over the bank right with all of the leaves and debris and garbage for 100 feet long, 20 feet wide and put it right over the bank, with all the other trash,” Bennett told reporters.
Noting the hundreds of face masks, discarded shopping bags, Dunkin’ containers, used diapers and other trash, Bennett became infuriated and decided to take it upon himself to clean up the mess. He began picking up the trash, when employees saw him and ordered him to leave the property. When he refused, they contacted police. When an officer arrived, Bennett left the premises.
“I can’t walk away from it anymore,” Bennett later told reporters. “I love Maine and I love the rivers. I love the ponds, the lakes and the wildlife, and I’m not gonna let corporate Walmart s—t all over Oxford County, Maine. They can do it to the rest of the country and the rest of the world, but they’re not doing it here on my watch.”
The store manager at the Walmart told reporters that the company headquarters was sending a cleanup crew to take care of the trash.
California residents flocked to an abandoned gas station last week to get a whiff of what may be the most offensive flower known to man.
The Associated Press reports that Solomon Leyva, a nursery owner in Alameda, Calif., who deals in rare plants, decided to share his extremely rare amorphophallus titanum—better known as the “corpse flower”—with his neighbors. The plant can take up to seven years to bloom, and experiencing its scent is a rare joy pursued by many plant enthusiasts. It gets its name from the terrible scent it emits while blooming, described as similar to rotting meat. The odor attracts carnivorous insects, which are the main pollinators of the plant.
But it also attracts neighbors, as Leyya found when he put his rare prize on display at an abandoned gas station near his nursery. “I grabbed my wagon, went down to my greenhouse, put it in with the help of a friend of mine, dragged it down here to this abandoned building and people just started showing up,” Leyva told reporters. By his estimation, over a thousand people have come by to check out the rare plant.
“Everyone is commenting to me that the last time they’ve seen this was in San Francisco, and there was a barrier, and they had to wait for hours, and they weren’t allowed to get near it,” Leyva said. “I think everyone’s tripping out that they can walk up and wiggle it and smell it.”
Half of a Texas high school’s graduating class are being punished with school suspension for what some parents are calling a “harmless” senior prank.
According to People around 40 seniors at Comfort High School in Comfort, Texas, received two-week in-school suspensions for placing plastic forks throughout a football field as part of a senior prank.
Many of the students’ parents are questioning the harshness of the school’s punishment. Some said they were not only aware of the students’ plans, they actually approved of them. According to reports, while a large group took part in “forking” the football field, a smaller group went inside the school and placed objects like streamers, balloons, plastic wrap and a decorative stag head around the campus. Students also placed a crudely written “For Sale” sign on the school lawn.
In response, school leadership penalized around 40 students with two weeks of in-school suspension, the removal of senior privileges and the potential loss of graduation honors. Reportedly among those being punished are the school’s valedictorian, salutatorian and others in the top 10 percent of the class.
Considering that there were no police reports filed, there was no reported damage done to the school property and only a small number of students entered the school building, many parents are questioning why the school has decided to punish half of the graduating class.
“There’s just no equity to the punishment,” said Bruce Lott, father of the salutatorian. “You’re looking at your top 10—you’re looking at your valedictorian, your salutatorian, and you’re looking at honor society kids. And this was a harmless prank that they were gonna do just kind of as a goodbye, you know, put a fork in us kind of deal.”
A Missouri family was caught off guard when a car came crashing through their roof in the middle of the night.
According to Fox2 in Missouri, a family was sleeping last week when they heard a huge crash around 1:30am. Unsure of what was happening but seeing flames in his bedroom, one of the homeowners managed to grab a water hose and put out the flames. Once the fire was dealt with, the homeowners realized that their second-story bathroom had been destroyed by a car that had somehow smashed through the wall.
Their shock escalated when they heard crunching sounds and realized that the driver and passenger were still inside the car. The couple asked if they were alright, and both exited the vehicle before walking across the bedroom.
Police identified the driver and passenger as local teens who had been attending a graduation party in the neighborhood. Police say the car was likely traveling at a high speed when it left the road, hit a tree stump and flew through the air, ultimately crashing through the homeowners’ second-story bathroom.
Police say no one was hurt during the incident.
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Joshua Lee covers cannabis for The Paper. More by Josh Lee
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