It was not a good week to be an alligator, a chocolate bunny, or to own a backyard pool in Florida. And don’t get us started about being in a gardening group. Alas, there is some “exciting” news, which only Swiss Chalet can explain…

ONLY IN FLORIDA

A Florida man told police officers he was “teaching it a lesson” when he tried to throw a live alligator he had stolen from a miniature golf course onto the roof of a beachside cocktail lounge. Daytona Beach Shores police officers saw the man take the alligator by its tail, hit it against the awning of the building, throw it to the ground, and stomp on it twice. The 32-year-old man from Homestead was taken into custody and charged with possession and injury of an alligator, unarmed burglary of an occupied dwelling, theft, and criminal mischief.

UNDER COVER

An Indonesian man with the coronavirus boarded a domestic flight disguised as his wife, wearing a niqab covering his face and carrying fake IDs and a negative PCR test result. But the cover didn’t last long. Police say a flight attendant aboard a Citilink plane traveling from Jakarta to Ternate in North Maluku province noticed the man change the clothes in the lavatory. Police took him for a COVID-19 test, which came back positive. The man is currently self-isolating at home and police said the investigation will continue.

NOT UNDER COVER

A Florida man returning home from a doctor’s appointment found a stranger skinny dipping in his backyard swimming pool. At first, the man only noticed clothes scattered across his lanai, then he saw the woman in his pool and called police. The woman was hostile and told sheriff’s deputies to leave her alone and refused to be identified. Officials eventually identified the 42-year-old woman through previous jail booking photos and charged her with trespassing and resisting a law enforcement officer without violence.

ALL THAT GLITTERS

A German federal court has ruled that the golden shade of the foil wrap on Lindt & Spruengli’s Gold Bunny, a popular chocolate Easter bunny, enjoys protected status. The Federal Court of Justice delivered its verdict in a battle between Switzerland’s Lindt and a German company, Heilemann, which in 2018 also marketed a chocolate bunny in a gold foil wrap. Lindt argued that it had a trademark on the colour acquired by use, that its rival had infringed that trademark, and that Heilemann should be prevented from selling its product.

HOE HOE HOE!

There’s nothing funny about moderating a Facebook gardening group. There are complaints of wooly bugs, inclement weather, and the novice members who insist on using dish detergent on their plants. And then there’s the word “hoe,” which Facebook’s algorithms sometimes flag as “violating community standards,” apparently referring to a different word, one without an “e” at the end that is nonetheless often misspelled as the garden tool.

Recently a garden group in western New York discovered the Facebook flaw when a member commented “Push pull hoe!” on a post asking for “your most loved & indispensable weeding tool,” to which the social media giant replied: “We reviewed this comment and found it goes against our standards for harassment and bullying.” Fearing that by violating the rule too many times the group could be shut down, moderator Elizabeth Licata contacted Facebook, but to no avail. “(It) was useless,” she said. “How do you do that? You know, I said this is a gardening group, a hoe is gardening tool.” Licata said she never heard from a person at Facebook and found navigating the social network’s system of surveys and ways to try to set the record straight was futile.

MOUNTAIN OR A MOLEHILL?

London’s latest tourist attraction aimed for the heights but has fallen a bit flat. The Marble Arch Mound, an artificial hill beside one of the city’s busiest intersections, opened this week — and is already offering refunds to disappointed visitors and admitting “teething problems.” The mound is a 25-m. hill made from turf-covered scaffolding that claims to offer panoramic views of Hyde Park, Oxford Street, and the surrounding area.

The hill’s website describes it as “a new and meaningful experience that captures the imagination of residents, businesses, and visitors,” but visitors likened it to a construction site or a slag heap that bears little resemblance to the lush images on the website. Westminster Council, which is in charge of the mound, acknowledged that elements of it “are not yet ready for visitors” and promised to fix it. The temporary attraction is due to remain until January.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

This has nothing to do with travel (or travel places), but sometimes one must simply revel in the ridiculous: Swiss Chalet says it is “excited to announce” the launch of a new augmented reality feature on its Chalet World mobile app that “takes guests beyond mealtime and offers them a fun and interactive way to play games and discover surprizes.”

The experience allows users to play games (some of which require others to participate), win prizes, find “strategically placed coupons,” and even “add some ambiance to mealtime by setting the ‘mood’ with featured music” – perhaps a little Jerry Lee Lewis (“come along baby, we got chicken in the barn”)? Could be the “The Chicken Dance.” Or how about the 1977 Disco Bill Cosby number (you can’t make this stuff up!) “What Do You Think About Lickin’ My Chicken”?

Allow us to quote (with a straight face) Swiss Chalet COO Ron Simard: “We know there is a limited number of apps our guests keep on their phones, so we wanted to differentiate ourselves and maximize the value of our app so guests will continue using it, even outside of mealtime. Chalet World allows us to introduce Swiss Chalet to a much younger audience while still staying true to our history and reward loyalists for being part of our heritage…”

Sigh.