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April 26th, 2024

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OOPS! | It's a Compulsion

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published Sept. 6,2018

OOPS! |   It's a Compulsion
Finished with her shopping at the Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, Walmart in late June, an unnamed woman returned to the parking lot and drove off in the black rental car she had just picked up.

Two weeks later, when she returned the car to the rental agency, she complained about the car's messy condition and the set of golf clubs left in it.

Nation Valley News reported the "slightly confused" manager informed her the car she had rented was a Nissan Sentra, but the car she returned was an Infiniti. Sure enough, the Infiniti owner had reported his car stolen from the Walmart parking lot, and when the woman and the agency manager returned to the lot, the Nissan was still parked there.

The Infiniti owner got his car back, the woman was a "wee bit embarrassed," and the Cornwall Community Police Service reported on July 8 that there was a "happy and funny ending to the story."

They also urged citizens to "not leave your key fobs in your vehicle when not being operated." [Nation Valley News, 7/8/2018]

In 1985, Tosya Garibyan of Arinj, in Armenia, asked her husband, Levon Arkelian, 44, to dig a pit under their home where she could store potatoes. But once he got started, Radio Free Europe reported, he just couldn't stop.

Twenty-three years later, the underground oasis Arkelian created is a tourist attraction.

Working as many as 18 hours a day with only a hammer and chisel, Arkelian created seven rooms, stairwells and passages running as deep as 65 feet and adorned them with carvings and decorations made from found objects.

Arkelian passed away in 2008, and his widow welcomes tourists to her museum, which includes his shredded work boots and tools. But she says the couple argued about the project.

"He ruined his health because of this hole," she told RFE. [Radio Free Europe, 6/20/2018]


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