Last week in Oklahoma, Melanie Armstrong received an Amazon delivery — or so she thought. Since she wasn’t home at the time, the delivery driver decided to leave the package in the most unusual hands available: the lap of a life-sized decorative skeleton named Skelly, who permanently sits on Armstrong’s front porch.
“He was there to protect the package,” Armstrong joked to The Dodo. “I even have the video of the Amazon driver being a total homie and picking up Skelly’s hand so he could tuck the package underneath it.”
But Skelly, despite his spooky presence, turned out to be terrible at security work.
Armstrong knew the parcel, which contained an order from Victoria’s Secret, had been dropped off. Yet when she returned home later that day, the box had mysteriously vanished. No alert had popped up on her doorbell camera either, which only deepened the mystery.
“I was confused at first,” Armstrong said. “So I started scrolling back through the footage. And oh, boy — I laughed SO hard!”
The video, which she also shared with the Choctaw Police Department, revealed the unlikely culprit in action: not a person, but a dog, boldly trotting onto the porch and snatching the package right from Skelly’s lap. Another dog lingered behind him like a lookout, completing the perfect canine crime duo.
“I was a mix of angry, surprised, shocked, amazed — but mostly tickled!” Armstrong admitted. “What a smart dog!”
The four-legged thieves weren’t strangers, either. Armstrong recognized them immediately.
“They’re my next-door neighbor’s dogs,” she said. “He came by the next night holding all my panties in his hands. He was super embarrassed.”
Because Armstrong needed a police report to request a replacement for the pilfered items, she dutifully filed one — though she didn’t hold the dogs accountable for their mischief.
“No hard feelings,” Armstrong said. “Those dogs looked like they were having the time of their lives.”
As for Skelly, he has officially been removed from package-protection duty. Armstrong now has a secure delivery box for future orders, eliminating the temptation for any neighborhood pups.
Despite being the unintended star of a bizarre, panty-stealing incident, Armstrong maintains a sense of humor about the notoriety.
“Apparently I’m the neighborhood Karen … over panties,” she joked. “I’ve seen the dogs since, and I always tell them how goofy they are.”