There鈥檚 a bizarre mystery unfolding in Culpeper, and the sheriff is not working too hard to investigate. That鈥檚 not to denigrate the sheriff鈥檚 office 鈥� they鈥檙e legitimately baffled by what鈥檚 going on 鈥� but the sheriff and the rest of the community seem more amused than anything.
The mystery is this: Someone left a golden toilet in front of the county鈥檚 administration building. According to County Sheriff Tim Chilton, it all started with a phone call.
“A citizen that called, he actually works for the county, and called me and said, ‘Hey, we have a golden toilet sitting on our county administration lawn. What do we do with it?’ And I’m like, what are you even talking about?鈥�
And almost immediately after that, the laughs started.
鈥淪o he takes a picture, sends it to me, and of course, the rest is history,” said Chilton. “There’s the old golden, golden throne sitting there, waiting on whatever. But folks were stopping and taking pictures with it.鈥�
Chilton said they鈥檙e not going to 鈥渋nvestigate鈥� the toilet or it鈥檚 origins, but they have moved it out of the way, to a place where it鈥檚 rightful owner can claim it. Perhaps a more important question to the sheriff than 鈥榃here does it come from?鈥� is, 鈥榃hat to do with it now?鈥� and for that, the community has it鈥檚 own ideas.
鈥淧eople want to make it into a shrine, like a bird bath, they want to make it into a place for bird seed,” said Chilton. “They want to they want to us to put a fountain in it. And then they want to have the one lady says, let’s do a segment everybody that wants to talk a bunch of junk about the county, they have to sit on the golden throne and talk about it. And they’re going to call it duty calls.鈥�
The sheriff is taking it all in stride and with humor. He says that the 鈥済olden throne鈥� is not detracting from his police duties (no pun intended), but has really done well for the department鈥檚 social media.
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