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People Keep Leaving Sex Toys on the Tube And Turning Up to Collect Them

Vibrators are expensive, especially if you make a habit of losing them on the London Underground.
Left to right: photo by Flickr user Derek Key and stock photo of sex toy via Wikimedia Commons

Here's a scenario: You've just been shopping for some intimate treats—perhaps a crystal topped dildo or an extra-powerful vibrator—and you get the subway home. Your stop arrives; you hop off the train, but in the process you leave behind your not-inexpensive treats. Do you go back and claim them from the lost property office, or do you make do with a low-cost substitute?

This scenario is real, people. The Evening Standard reports that commuters left 35 sex aids on London's public transport system in the last year alone. To their credit, almost half of their owners turned up to collect them.

Sex toys weren't the only aids being re-homed by Transport for London (TFL) in anticipation of being returned to their rightful owners. Four passengers also mislaid their Viagra tablets on public transport, though they didn't return to claim them. And 135 wigs were also mislaid, although only 14 were collected by their owners, perhaps because the skinhead look is extremely in vogue this season.

Read more: I Tried to Use a Fidget Spinner as a Sex Toy but I Promise I'm OK

Brits are a randy bunch, having the second-highest number of Google searches for sex toys globally, after the US. Items that aren't reclaimed within three months are resold by TFL or donated to charity—although it's unclear whether sex toys are repurposed in this way. If so, let's pray everything was thoroughly disinfected before being resold.

Despite repeated enquiries, TFL did not return any of our requests for comment. They were probably too busy disinfecting a repurposed dildo or something.