Serta 'sheepnapping' caper to end happily
David Perry, Executive editor -- Furniture Today, October 28, 2002
Let's call this The Great Sheepnap Caper.
After a thief broke into a Mattress World store in Vancouver, British Columbia, one night, store owner Chet Whittingham checked the premises carefully and found only one thing missing: the 7½-pound Serta Counting Sheep that his customers liked to play with.
"Everyone loved that sheep," Whittingham told his local newspaper, which covered the sheepnapping in a story headlined, "Sheepish about loss of mascot."
The sheep rustler even sent a ransom note that said, "If you want to see your sheep again we want $10,000 in small bills."
Whittingham has gotten several calls inquiring about his lost sheep, which remains on the missing list. He doesn't plan on paying the ransom, but he would like to get another sheep. This one, he declares, will be protected by a cage.
He thinks the sheep theft was a prank. He admitted that the ransom note made him chuckle.
But the loss of the sheep is no laughing matter.
"People would wrestle with the sheep, kids would play with it and people even offered to buy it," Whittingham told the newspaper. "They would say, 'Can I get the sheep if I buy a mattress?' But I would say, 'No, it's not for sale'."
While smaller versions of the Counting Sheep are for sale on Serta's Web site (www.serta.com) for $9.99, Serta only makes a limited number of the larger sheep for special promotional purposes.
A Serta spokeswoman said the sheepnapping saga will have a happy ending. One way or another, she said, another oversized Counting Sheep soon will be grazing in the store.
