Oregon Man Leaves Prostitute With a Stolen Bush Baby as a Tip
When it comes to giving tips, calculations can be complicated. What’s an appropriate percentage to tip a shitty waiter, or alternatively, a decent one? What’s the standard tip rate from cab drivers? And so on.
What’s not (usually) very complicated with tips is the question of what units are being calculated: it’s money. Duh. Money is how we pay for things, and when we tip people, we’re paying them. That’s why it’s factored into wages and stuff. Tips = money.
That being said… unconventional tips aren’t unheard of. When I was a teen working at a grocery store, one time I helped somebody load their car and received a tip consisting of Reese’s cups and a one-liter Sprite, the latter of which was simply removed from the customer’s six-pack. Stuff happens, we don’t always have money on us. Whatever.
I’ve never tipped a prostitute. Not because I’m stingy — I’ve just never solicited a prostitute. Even so, I’d assume that tips for prostitutes are calculated similarly to tips for anyone else. Am I rambling? Sorry, I’m just baffled by the guy in Oregon who tipped his prostitute with a living bush baby. I am baffled that anyone would do that.
The Hunt for Gooey
Gooey is the name of the bush baby that this prostitute got tipped with. Bush babies are basically little, adorable monkeys with huge eyes. They’re from Africa, live in trees, and some people keep them as pets. In fact, that’s how Gooey went missing. The little dude was waiting to get adopted at the Zany Zoo Pet Store in Eugene, Oregon, but ended up getting burgled and used to pay a prostitute. Poor Gooey.
Gooey wasn’t the only thing that went missing from the Zany Zoo Pet Store. Whoever stole the bush baby, investigators realized, must have also jacked the laptop and Girl Scout Cookie money that went missing at the same time. Eugene’s police detectives spent two weeks tracking Gooey down, eventually finding themselves questioning a prostitute at a hotel.
Somehow, this is where Gooey ended up. The prositute (who was from another town and hasn’t been named) told detectives that a guy named Nathan McClain gave her the bush baby as a tip, for sex. She also returned Gooey without protest. But who’s Nathan McClain?
The Zaniest Pet Store Owner in Oregon
Surprise! Nathan McClain turned out to be none other than the co-owner of the Zany Zoo Pet Store. It was an inside job.
McClain shares the Zany Zoo Pet Store with his wife, Abbie. She obviously had no idea her husband was the burglar — after all, the guy stole this stuff to pay for adulterous fun. Abbie McClain had no idea that her husband was involved until the police contacted her, after which she promptly began the process of severing Nathan’s ties with the pet store.
According to a statement on the Zany Zoo Pet Store’s Facebook page, “Nathan McClain will have no further association with Zany Zoo.”
And although the elephant in the room has been largely ignored by media outlets covering this story, I’ll go ahead and wager my own guess: divorce for the McClains is probably, at the very least, on the table.
The Jig is Up
Did they ever catch him? ‘Course they did. It’s pretty hard to get away with stupid crimes in this day and age, especially when the police department literally knows you did it. After learning about Nathan McClain from the anonymous prostitute he tipped with a bush baby, all law enforcement had to do was nab him.
It took two more days. The police didn’t even have to hunt very hard, because Nathan McClain basically came to them:
“McClain was observed exiting the adult porn shop next door and he appeared to be under the influence of methamphetamine.”
Oregon State Police took McClain into custody in one of their own parking lots. They didn’t even need to bring up the bush baby or the prostitute, since McClain was literally on meth when they found him. And meth, if nothing else, is definitely grounds for a DUI. So far, he’s looking at those charges on top of soliciting a prostitute. The theft offenses are on the way, but further investigation is necessary. They never figured out what happened to that Girl Scout cookie money.
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