“People are just weird.”
There is perhaps no better way to sum up a bizarre prank that played out in a Virginia neighbourhood last weekend than those words from resident Jim Brooksbank.
Brooksbank was one of more than 50 residents in Henrico, Va., who woke up on Sunday to find an old TV on the front porch of his home, after a visit from a TV fairy bizarre individual late Saturday.
“We got an old tube-style TV, 13-inch,” Brooksbank told local TV station WTVR.
Several doorbell security cameras captured footage of the deliveryman: A person in coveralls wearing a full-sized TV on his head.
“He wants to be known as the TV Santa Claus. I don’t know,” Brooksbank said.
TV Santa appears to be a re-gifter, as all of the TVs he left behind were from before the LCD-screen era. No one was lucky enough to score a 50-inch plasma TV.
“They had way too much time on their hands if they had all these TVs and spread them all over the neighbourhood,” resident Michael Kroll said.
Henrico Police say they’re looking into the situation, but it appears to be nothing more than an inconvenience to the community.
Officers went around collecting the TVs in a truck on Sunday morning.
The deliveryman’s costume was unusual, although not unique. The popular comic book series Saga features a whole race of TV-headed aliens, including a villain known as Prince Robot IV.
Several people made the comparison on Twitter.
“Prince Robot IV at it again,” user Ryan Burke wrote.
An individual in a similar disguise pulled the same prank in another Virginia neighbourhood last August.
“It’s summer and people are getting ready to go back to school,” Brooksbank said. “Maybe TV Man was just ready to strike and put a little humour in our lives.”