Now He's Wiped Out

Oh, the indignity.

Surveillance cameras have once again proven their worth in the fight against crime. German bus driver Siegfried Lorenz, suffering from stomach trouble before he was about to start his shift, was spotted taking a toilet roll from the bus depot lavatory, and duly sacked.

A German bus driver was sacked for taking a roll of toilet paper from the depot because he had diaorrhea and didn't want to be caught short while driving his vehicle, Bild newspaper reported.

"I was feeling ill when I arrived at the bus depot at 5.30 a.m. Stomach problems," Jochen Lorenz, 58, from the eastern town of Ilmenau, told the newspaper. "So I went to the lavatory."

But he continued to feel uncomfortable. "So I took a roll of toilet paper, put it in the bus. I wanted to have some during the drive in case of an emergency."

Lorenz was unaware that he had been caught on a surveillance camera and that the quantity of toilet rolls was strictly monitored.

Actually, he's not financially ruined just yet.

He protested against the sacking and told his boss that the roll was still in the bus, but to no avail. So Lorenz took the company to court and managed to secure a pay-off settlement totalling €7,500 ($10,625).