Nemy Bautista of Sacramento, Calif., will not be posting a five-star review to Amazon this holiday season following not one but two alarming experiences. On Nov. 28, Bautista returned home to find a pile of what he thought was dog poo at the end of his driveway. But after reviewing his security camera footage, he discovered the poop perp was in fact a contract delivery driver for Amazon, driving a U-Haul truck. Bautista watched as the female driver squatted by the side of the truck, partly concealed by the open door, and left her mark. Bautista called Amazon to complain, and a supervisor arrived hours later to bag up the evidence. The next day, Bautista got another package from Amazon, but the delivery person "tossed the package ... instead of walking up the driveway," Bautista told FOX40. He said the package contained a "fragile porcelain figurine," but it didn't break.
Making his commute smoother
Cai, a 28-year-old man in Jiangsu province, China, had plenty of time to consider traffic patterns as he waited for the lights to change during his daily commute. So much, in fact, that he decided to take matters into his own hands on Sept. 27 and paint new traffic arrows on the roadway. A traffic camera captured the whole project as Cai carefully added a straight arrow to the existing left-turn and U-turn arrows. "I saw the straight lane was always packed with cars, while the turning left lane has a lot of space," Cai told police. "So I thought changing the signs would make my commute smoother." The BBC reports that police fined Cai the equivalent of about $151.
On the naughty list
• A man in Australia couldn't wait for Santa to deliver his Christmas wish: a 5½-foot-tall "Dorothy model" sex doll. So, according to the Victoria Police Kingston Crime Investigation Unit, he broke into an adult entertainment store in Moorabbin on Dec. 4 by cutting through a fence with bolt cutters and smashing his way through the door. After quickly loading Dorothy into the back of his van, he took off. Security cameras caught the event, but the thief was disguised with stockings and a balaclava pulled over his head.
• A mall Santa working the weekend shift in late November got more than he bargained for at Dufferin Mall in Toronto when an unnamed woman unloaded a sleigh-full of obscenities on him, saying, "Do you have a sleigh? No? ... You're not magic! You're not even real! I heard about it when I was a young kid!" A bystander with a cellphone captured the tirade on video, reported the New York Post, and true to his spirit, St. Nick kept his composure and tried not to engage with the elf-hater. A mall spokesperson said the woman left without further incident.
A message from God?
An 18th-century statue of the crucified Jesus that was removed for restoration from the church of St. Agueda in Burgo de Osma, Spain, held a surprise in a most unusual spot. As historians removed from Jesus' backside a section of the carving meant to look like a cloth, they discovered two handwritten letters dated 1777 and signed by Joaquin Minguez, then-chaplain of the cathedral. Minguez details life in the community, including harvest reports and diseases, and tells about the sculpture's artist, Manuel Bal. Historian Efren Arroyo told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo it appears Minguez intended his letters to be a sort of time capsule. The original letters were sent to the Archbishop of Burgos for archiving, but copies were returned to Jesus' hindquarters.
News of the Weird is compiled by the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication. Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
