Here’s a quick guide to donating your pre-loved goods to charity: don’t send them your holey socks, smashed crockery, or high-explosive ordinance. This goes doubly for anyone considering palming off their wares to the Hornsby Fusion Op Shop. God knows they receive far too much of all three.
We can say that with authority after the op shop was evacuated yesterday afternoon, owing to the discovery of an actual artillery shell within a donation bin. Not even one of those ramshackle home-made jobbies, either – a bona fide, military-grade artillery shell, lovingly wrapped in a knitted cosy.
The Hornsby Advocate reports staff called police, with the bomb squad rocking up some time after to cordon off the scene. They took the shell from the premises. No word on what they did with its fuzzy cover.
Volunteer Phyl Ladd said she was “convinced someone has been using the bomb as a doorstopper.” Amazingly, Fusion Australia’s Myf Webster also put out the call to “avoid donating unexploded artillery shells” after the incident.
It’s not known how long it had even been there, meaning op shop staff could have been pottering around the joint in the presence of serious weaponry for yonks. There’s every likelihood the shell’s fuse and explosive content had been removed beforehand, but still. Don’t scare your local op shop attendants like that.
Source: The Daily Telegraph / The Hornsby Advocate.
Photo: Fusion Op Shop Hornsby / Facebook.
Photo: Fusion Op Shop Hornsby / Facebook.
