(CNN) — Note to self: When soliciting for drugs on Twitter, try a direct message.
Faced down with another boring day at work, a Toronto car repair shop worker decided some weed would be just the thing to make the day fly by.
Instead of reaching out by phone or walking to his friendly neighborhood drug dealer, the user, using the handle @Sunith_DB8R, tweeted that he needed a joint delivered to his workplace in Vaughan, just north of Toronto.
The York Regional Police, @YRP, caught a whiff of the request and enthusiastically — perhaps too enthusiastically — responded with, “Awesome! Can we come too?”
You can imagine what happens next.
Social media savvy
The police forwarded the tweet to an account for a man listed on the board of directors for the repair shop chain.
But it didn’t end there.
The exchange was re-tweeted thousands of times. At one point it was a top trend in Toronto that Tuesday.
The tweeter then tried a couple of different tactics.
First, defiance. “Never knew weed smokers are more wanted in society than shooters & rapists. Big smh to all of y’all,” said one tweet.
Then, retreat. “People really think I’m serious with my tweets? MANNNNNNNN.”
Finally, shame. “Can’t lie, stupid move but would y’all have noticed that tweet if YRP didn’t retweet it?”
Since the tweeter named the company, Mr. Lube, and the intersection where his shop was, the chain got involved.
“Thank you to the York Regional Police for your help and great work. The matter has now been handled,” it said in a tweet.
Handled?
“Just got the call of termination,” tweeted the worker later that afternoon. Make that, the ex-worker.
CNN affiliate CTV reached out to the manager of the repair shop, who said “there was an employee here by that name; he no longer works for us.”
The York Regional Police explained in a later tweet, “If you shouted on a busy street corner about illegal activity & we drove by, we’d intervene. Think of Twitter as a virtual street corner.”
And one final volleyfrom the social media-savvy department.
“At the end an interesting day, a reminder to our tweeps: the Internet is a public forum #tweetsafe #tweetclassy #imagineyourmamareadingit”
Lesson learned?
Probably.
The next day, the man deleted his account.
CNN’s Ed Payne contributed to this report
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