The weirdest and most Disney-worthy love story of our time has come to an end today.
Back in 2006, the universe made up of people who have too much time on their hands (certainly not any of you Scanner readers, of course) read of Petra, the German swan, who had fallen in love with a large white swan. The only reason anyone besides overly romantic lovers, park flashers, and the rest of the country's nature lovers even knew about this is because the large white swan was, in fact, a pedal boat.
Petra, a tiny black swan, followed the boat around a Munster lake for days at a time, and seemed unperturbed by her celebrity and media attention. During the '06-'07 winter season, the boat's owner was forced to remove the boat from the lake but was not going to be the bad guy in this story and had Petra move into an indoor pond in the city... along with her boyfriend.
The first sign of trouble was noted more than a year ago in a Der Spiegel story:
Wildlife experts hope she will lose interest in the boat when she gets to know the other black swans living in the pond. "There are four singles among them. So there's hope," said zookeeper Monika Ewering.
Today, Weird News confirmed that although their long courtship had lasted much longer than anyone thought, and was thought to be thriving through this past summer when both were out on the lake again, Petra and The Boat have indeed split up:
Zoo director Joerg Adler says Petra and her new mate - a white swan - are building a nest together.
The boat is to be returned to its local owner on Thursday.
Happy hour is starting early for us today, folks, sniff.
[Image courtesy the Associated Press and link via Weird News.]