Watercooler Stories

Bag of Woolworths candy sells big on eBay

LONDON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A bag of Woolworths pick 'n' mix candy from one of the stores that closed in Britain last year sold on eBay for more than $20,000.

Ed Adams, manager of the store in Petts Wood in Kent, grabbed the mixture Saturday -- the last day of bidding -- The Daily Mail reported. Proceeds from the sale are to go to the Retail Trust, a non-profit organization helping store workers.

"I am really proud and excited to see such an enormous sum has been raised for the last bag of pic 'n' mix," he said.

Woolworths began in the United States as the original "five and dime" store. The British embraced the chain, nicknaming it "Woolies," and the British operation was spun off from the U.S. one and outlived it by more than a decade.

The bag of white mice, Turkish delight, cola bottles, pineapple cubes and similar goodies weighs 800 grams (about 1 ¾ pounds). There were 115 bids, with the winning one weighing in at 14,500 pounds.

Parrot offered, to settle lawsuit

BOCA RATON, Fla., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A woman in Florida says she's offering her parrot to end a dispute between two other women fighting over the ownership of another parrot.

Leah Dellapelle, 28, said she loves Travis, her African gray parrot, but she can't afford his $100-a-month diet, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

Dellapelle says Travis may be the answer to a lawsuit filed Friday by Angela Colicheski, 52, against Sarita Lytell, 47, both of Boca Raton.

"I'm looking for someone who can afford birds," Dellapelle said.

Colicheski contends Lytell has her parrot, Tequila, who flew away about three years ago. Lytell said she has cared for a parrot she named Lucky since it was found dehydrated and scared in May 2006 and she is not about to give it up.

"He's my little baby and he could be taken away from me," Lytell said. "He looked at me today and said, 'Ma, it's all right. Don't cry.'"

Colicheski has not indicated whether she is interested in dropping the lawsuit and adopting Travis, a bird so smart he asks you to go lie down when you wake him from his slumber, Dellapelle said.

Pooch poop poses problems on NYC streets

NEW YORK, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Manhattan is seeing an increase in the number of people who fail to scoop their dogs' poop, New York's sanitation department says.

"It's a minefield over here," said Max Moyet, 34, a dog walker who lives on Central Park West. "It upsets the hell out of me."

Morningside Drive, Amsterdam Avenue, West End Avenue, Riverside Drive and Central Park West lead the number of complaints, sanitation officers told the New York Post in a story published.

The Department of Sanitation issued 909 dog poop violations citywide between July 2007 and June 2008, a 16 percent increase from the same period the previous year.

City officials and irate residents say they hope an increase in fines from $50 to $250 per violation will make dog owners more considerate.

"It's their self-absorbed, all-about-me attitude," Moyet said. "They're like, 'I'm too busy going to my Pilates class. I don't have the time to keep the neighborhood clean.'"

Ferry goes from prized purchase to eBay

NEW YORK, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A New York group that bought a 50-year-old ferry in 2007 for $500,000 has put the boat up for auction on eBay, where it is likely to sell for much less.

By early Sunday, the top bid for The Islander, which plied the waters of Vineyard Sound in Massachusetts for decades, was $24,100. The auction ends Monday.

The Governors Island Preservation and Education Corp. figured the ferry was a no-lose proposition at the time of purchase, The Cape Cod Times reported. The group planned to use the vessel for an 8-minute run between Manhattan and Governors Island, a former military base in New York Harbor, but if that did not work out the 201-foot vessel was one big chunk of scrap metal.

By the time the group realized the ferry would need more work than expected, the price of scrap metal had fallen 70 percent.

Jon Meyers, in charge of real estate for the corporation, said the group plans to buy another ferry. He said the Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority is not responsible for the debacle.

"It was buyer beware," he told the Times. "We bought it in 'as is' condition."