If you’re a pet store employee, probably the only thing worse than opening up a shipment of live tropical fish to find them dead is opening up a shipment of live tropical fish to find a human body intended for a research facility in a neighboring town. That’s what happened at a Pets Plus in Philadelphia yesterday, and US Airways says the mixup was caused by a “verbal miscommunication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative” and that they’re deeply sorry.
“Pet store expects fish shipment, but gets corpse” [Huron Daily Tribune] (Thanks to Joanne!)
(Photo: cliff1066)
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Was the corpse’s name, Chum?
/rimshot
At least it wasn’t a hairless frozedn, thawed, and refrozen hairless cat.
Did they set up the necessary precautions for flying fishing in the air?
maybe the live tropical fish are now taking hostages
Nice! Can this be an episode of Bones?
@Wit: I had the exact same thought. Brennan and Booth pose as pet store employees and flirt in an unresolved-sexual-tension sort of way…like they do EVERY week.
Hmm. Thought they would “take this seriously.”
They just blamed it on an accident.
I call shenanigans.
@ScubaSteveKzoo: We have a call of Shenanigans. Everyone please retrieve your brooms while we verify the claim!
@I♥Hannah_GitEmSteveDave: You sir, are awesome. Have a cookie, my treat.
@I♥Hannah_GitEmSteveDave: It has been a while since I have seen this video
@theblackdog: I use it whenever it is called for/invoked.
He was sleeping with the fishes!
@mdoublej: …see!
So much for not being caught dead at Pets Plus.
A “verbal miscommunication” made “fish” sound like “corpse”? That’s one hell of a speech impediment.
If this happened to me back when I was working the fish dept at a pet store I would have been traumatized for life.
@RockStarr: Seriously! I can not even my reaction to this , but I am sure it would involve me wearing a diaper to work from then on.
@RockStarr: You think that was bad? The funeral director must have had the carp scared out of him!
I wonder how many fish the research facility examined before realizing they didn’t have a human body?
Or, maybe they have started a new project to examine how a corpse can reverse the forces of evolution and revert to fishes….
If it were my corpse that had been incorrectly shipped to a Pets Plus, I probably wouldn’t care.
No one here seems concerned, and that bothers me. What did the people at the other facility think? Perhaps they were traumatized when they opened the box and there was something alive in it!
@I♥Hannah_GitEmSteveDave: It’s a nice Dr. Seuss moment you’re contemplating, but apparently the fish were tragically abandoned at the airport and probably became corpses themselves. Or sushi.
Doesn’t this sound sort of like the beginning to “Arachnophobia?”
At first, I thought they meant like, dead fish. I was in my “who cares mode”, but reading that it was an actual human corpse…. eek. Must’ve sucked to be that kid.
lol oops.
“If it were my corpse that had been incorrectly shipped to a Pets Plus, I probably wouldn’t care.”
Same here. And ditto if it’s somebody ELSE’S corpse.
Maybe that’s just me.
Could have been worse. If it were some electronics like an XBOX then the airline would not have been responsible.
Lovely – not only did they receive the wrong shipment, but their shipment never arrived.
Somewhere this afternoon, some funeral home employees are standing around an opened box, scratching their heads and saying “Now how the hell are we going to embalm these fish?”
@ekthesy: Individually.
@ekthesy: I’d say with bread crumbs and tartar sauce myself.
@SabyneWired: Ha!
So apparently the only competent employees of USAir are the crew of flight 1549 on January 15, 2009.
I would so be on the PA system.
“CLEANUP, fish aisle!”
Are bodies and fish transported in similar containers? If I buy wholesale fish from Directbuy, do I get the option of a body bag’s worth or pay more for coffin packaging?
Are fish fer eatin’ sold the same way?
HOW does this happen!?
Mom, can we keep him!!???
Sure beats the time the tried using an A320 to deliver corpses to the fish in the Hudson…
Pfft – so they opened the box and found something dead. Big deal! Just scoop him out with the little net and carry on.
Babies.
I’d like to think one of the guys at the funeral home quit over this… when else could you possibly use the line ‘So long and thanks for all the fish.’ I’d quit just for being given an excuse.
Holy damn small world! How the heck did you come across a story from Pennsylvania in a small town newspaper based out Bad Axe, MI?
The only reason I even read this story is because of the source. My dad used to be the editor of the Tribune, and I thought you’d made a mistake!
Paging writers for CSI, NCIS, and/or Bones!
Frank: Let me ask you a question: did you ever see that movie, “Night of the Living Dead”?
Freddy: Oh, yeah, yeah – that’s the one where the corpses start eating the people, right? What about it?
Frank: Did you know that story was based on a true case?
Freddy: [chuckles] Aw, c’mon, you’re shitting me, right?
Frank: I ain’t never been more serious in my life.
@Wit
no, no it can’t, because Bones is almost definitely canceled.
My dad would say “What we have here…is a failure to communicate.”