Peacock in liquor store

A female peacock (known as a peahen) wandered into a liquor store in California. 90 minutes later, she’d destroyed $500 worth of alcohol.

At first the peacock was not making any fuss. From the Associated Press:

Without a peep, the peahen strutted into the open door of the Royal Oaks Liquor Store in Arcadia on Monday. Store manager and college senior Rani Ghanem said he didn’t even know it was there until a customer walked in and asked him about “el pollo,” Spanish for “the chicken.”

Ghanem got an animal-control officer on the scene, but that only made things worse as the officer looked pretty inept trying to capture the bird. According to the AP story, the officer failed to catch it until Ghanem stepped in to help.

“He was trying to get it with the fishing net, and (the bird) jumped on the first wine bottle. When that happened, I was like, ‘Aw, this is about to be a big mess,’” Ghanem said. “He tried to get it again with the net … It just went straight diving into all the bottles. The more he kept on trying to use the net, the more it kept on flapping its wings and knocking everything over.”

At least Ghanem took the whole incident in good taste.

In all, Ghanem said the peahen was in the store for 90 minutes and broke $500 worth of the family store’s best bottles, including champagne.

“Yeah, he’s got expensive taste,” Ghanem joked in the store Tuesday. “I’m like, ‘You break, you buy, dude.’ But clearly he didn’t. He got away with it.”

Whatever money they lost in the destruction, hopefully they’ll make it back through all this publicity.

[AP]

About Jesse Kramer

Jesse is a writer and editor for The Comeback. He has also worked for SI.com and runs The Catch and Shoot, a college basketball website based in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow Jesse on Twitter @Jesse_Kramer.