Watercooler Stories

It's a (shrink)-wrap for Rove

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Pranksters were at work while outgoing U.S. presidential adviser Karl Rove was out of town, shrink-wrapping his car and decorating it with stuffed animals.

The mischief-makers left a stuffed toy elephant on the hood and a pair of eagles on the trunk. But the coup de grace had to be the "I Love Barack Obama" bumper sticker.

Rove, who is leaving the Bush administration this week, was out of town and left his car parked near the West Wing -- where colleagues apparently did the deed, the Christian Broadcast Network reported. Rove was expected to return to Washington Wednesday evening.

Aussie rugby team's art lost

SYDNEY, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- An Aboriginal painting an Australian rugby team intended to present to a French museum has gone missing at London's Heathrow Airport.

The Wallabies had been given the painting of a wallaby reaching for the sky by Aboriginal elders from Amhem Land four years ago and hung it in their dressing room before each match of the last World Cup, The Sydney Herald Sun reported Thursday. The team had intended to present it to French rugby official Bernard Lapasset for eventual display in an indigenous art gallery in Paris.

The team arrived in Paris after changing planes in London but the painting, packed in a special box, never did.

Wallabies’ halfback George Gregan called the loss "extremely disappointing."

"We had a special trip up to Arnhem Land where the elders basically produced that piece of art specifically for that particular team and it means a lot emotionally and spiritually to the group," he said. "So to have that lost at Heathrow Airport, yeah it's a big loss."

It's thought the piece got lost at Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport, which has been plagued by lost luggage problems this summer.

Employee fired for catching alleged thief

MURFREESBORO, Tenn., Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A 24-year-old Home Depot employee in Murfreesboro, Tenn., is unemployed this week after catching a man who allegedly took cash from an on-site soda machine.

Former department manager Dustin Chester said that he simply acted on instinct when he saw the alleged thief, but later found out that his employer's policy was to simply allow such offenders to escape, The Nashville Tennessean reported Wednesday.

"The district manager told me that we are supposed to let thieves walk away; it blew my mind," the former employee-of-the-year said.

"He had a crowbar, and what if he had come inside and gone after customers or the employees working at the registers?" Chester said of Monday's suspect. "I'd rather have him coming at me than going after any of the customers."

A Home Depot spokesman said that the decision to fire Chester and his general manager was simply based on company policy, which is oriented toward ensuring safety on-site.

Free rides not enough for some commuters

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- The San Francisco Bay Area regional transit system offered free mass transit rides Wednesday, but apparently didn't get a lot of takers.

Spot checks conducted by the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday showed the free ride offer -- intended to curb smog -- failed to move many new commuters to buses, trains or ferries.

“It was great because it was free,” AC Transit bus rider Stuart Lee -- who commutes from Piedmont to Oakland -- told the newspaper, but he said his bus was no more crowded than usual.

Wednesday was the first of four planned “Spare the Air” days for 2007 offering free public transit on Muni, AC Transit, SamTrans and other regional transit systems to get people out of their cars.

Some commuters complained about an increase in rowdy teenagers jumping on and off public transit.