Winnie The Pooh Telephone Causes Post Office Evacuation

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WRIGHT CITY — Authorities evacuated the Wright City post office on Thursday morning after workers found a "ticking" package, but the contents turned out to be a noisy Winnie the Pooh telephone.

Police and members of the bomb squad were called in about 6:45 a.m. after the man picking up the parcel became alarmed by the noise. He told police he had ordered a phone over the Internet, but it didn't have a clock on it.

"It was pretty distinctly ticking," Wright City Police Chief Don Wickenhauser said. "And he didn't want to pick it up."

When authorities contacted the sender, he verified that it was nothing sinister.

It turned out the phone has a feature that causes Winnie's head to spin when the phone rings. Apparently it had been activated during shipping, said Cpl. Julie Scerine, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Highway Patrol.

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This was on an Army post. He was moving, and getting all his records together to clear the post before he could leave. He left his briefcase at the hospital with a metronome in it by mistake, and it went off. (If you dont know, a metronome is used by musicians to keep a constant beat while they practice. This one was electronic and would make a loud "clicK" between 40-280 beats per minute.)

The Army cleared out the hospital, and nearly blew up his briefcase.