Discharge happened long before investigators were on-scene.

On Wednesday morning the Shizuoka prefectural police received a phone call from a resident of the town of Kakegawa. The caller had spotted a silver attaché case by the side of a road in the Shimomata neighborhood, but its owner was nowhere to be found.

That’s weird enough on its own, but the case was also partially obscured in the roadside bushes, suggesting that whoever had placed it there may have been trying to hide it. Unattended and concealed packages raise all sorts of suspicions, and so the police decided to dispatch the bomb squad to deal with it. Traffic was shut down within a 300-meter (984-foot) area of the case while a team of experts set up an on-site command post to diagnose the threat and, if necessary, disarm the case.

▼ Video of the bomb squad in action

However, when the investigators finally opened up the case they found that they’d wouldn’t need wire cutters or other anti-incendiary equipment to resolve the situation. They likely wanted some hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, though, because the case didn’t contain a bomb, but a bunch of sex toys.

In total, traffic was shut down for about three and a half hours, but, thankfully and obviously, no injuries occurred, except perhaps strained muscles from the intense laughing from online commenters such as the ones below.

“Not a bomb, but still discharge-related.”
“I’m sure whoever forgot their attaché case there is really hard up right now.”
“Hopefully they can return the case to its rightful owner.”
“They should track the guy down and make him pay for the wasted expenses of having to send the bomb squad out.”
“I mean, they should have enough residual DNA evidence to figure out who the owner is.”
“My friend just texted me to say ‘Hey, dude, they found your case.’”
“When I was a kid, I left a porno magazine in the woods [but] this guy is on a whole other level.”
“Another peaceful day in Shizuoka.”

So…why? While police haven’t publicly speculated on the motive, it’s possible that Japan’s trash regulations are involved. Japan has a thorough classification system for different types of garbage, with things such as plastics bottles, metal cans, paper, fabric, and batteries often all having to be put out for pickup on different days. Put something out on the wrong day, and it won’t get picked up, but what category do sex toys fall under? It’s something you’d probably have to ask your local city hall for the answer to. Add in that most Japanese trash bags are clear or at least translucent, and it’s not hard to imagine that the owner either didn’t know which day to put them out, or didn’t want any of his neighbors to see him setting a bag of used sex toys out on the curb for pick-up.

Sources: FNN Prime Online via Hachima Kiko, YouTube/テレビ静岡ニュース, Twitter
Top image: Pexels
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