Re: Stolen cantaloupes

Carmie · ‎10-25-2010

@Annabellethecat66 I don't know who this child is or where he lives. I have never seen him before. We have very few children who live in my neighborhood and I know he does not live in my development.

He apparently lives within an area reachable by riding his bike.

If he comes back, I'll keep an eye on him.

Honestly the fruit was easy to grow, I just stuck the plants in the ground and watered them.

My backyard neighbor helps himself to my tomatoes...with my permission. It's just food and I am not starving.

I just don't like that the fruit was thrown out and not eaten. He should have knocked on the door and asked first. I would have told him to come back when the melons were ripe and ready and would have gladly given some to him.

Annabellethecat66 · ‎03-12-2010

@Carmie I thought they were your neighbors. One of my dear friends has a huge garden every year. He mainly gives me his amazing (better than amazing) tomatoes. I love tomatoes so much (well...I love his) that I've often joked when I die I want on my tombstone:" Here lies Linda she loved a good tomato".

I know the work that goes into growing something. That's why I got so worked up when I read your post.

I watch my friend (he lives across the road from me) and his wife on their hands and knees, planting and weeding, etc that garden.

I give them various things all of the time. I recently gave them one of those bug thingys the Q sells. They like to sit on their back porch and the bugs were eating them up. It's a win-win for both of us. Ha!

It says something (they don't know anything about growing things) because it read that you thought they'd eaten them before they were ripe.

Most of us are so used to fruit that has no taste because it comes from far off countries. We get bananas that are greener than a blade of grass and OK, now I'll stop but you know what I'm saying.

Too bad the kid doesn't live near you. You sound like a wonderful person who could have taught the kid a thing or two about respecting property AND teaching him a thing or two about growing things....

Take care.

MaryLamb · ‎04-03-2019

I had the same thing happen years ago, except the boy would come up on my porch and pull the plants out of my planters and throw them on the porch. After multiple incidents, my neighbor spotted and identified him. I knocked on his mother’s door and told her what her son was doing. She called me a liar (and many other things) and slammed the door in my face.

You’d be surprised how many “adults only” type companies online have newsletters and catalogues you can sign up to receive in the mail. I found about 20 of them and signed up the mom for about 10 of them. The other 10, I put the mom’s name on them, but the address of her next door neighbor. I often wonder how her neighbor reacted, and if they were neighborly and took the mom the mail that was misdelivered to them. Imagine opening your front door and your neighbor hands you a stack of dirty magazines saying “I think these are yours.”

Carmie · ‎10-25-2010

@MaryLamb Well, that was clever. Sometimes you just have to do something or go nuts.

My father loved his tomatoes and he planted them well into his 80's. He was so proud of them and would call my daughter to come and take pictures of him with his crop. He had polio when he was 6 months old and was severely crippled...both legs. He would crawl on the ground to work in his small patch garden when he could no longer stand up.

Once when I went to visit him, his neighbors ( two older ladies) asked me to come over and speak to them. They told me that the teenage girl who lived across the street was pulling his tomatoes off of the vine and smashing them. They said my father confronted her and told her she could take what she wanted to eat, but not to destroy them.

They also told me she pushed him and he fell down and then she made fun of him. He was 85.

Well, to say I was livid was an understatement. Just about then, the girl was coming out of her house and I confronted her. I am 5'1" and she was taller and heavier. I told her that if she set foot on my father property or touched him that I would kick her bottom all over the neighborhood.

She said she was a minor and only 15 and I couldn't touch her. I told her I could do whatever I pleased and that it would be my word against hers. I also told her I had two witnesses, the two older ladies, who would testify that she attacked me and I had to defend myself. We were screaming at each other in the street and then I told her to run away. I said I was losing control of myself and I would beat her silly if she didn't.

Well, she ran. The two ladies told me she was terrorizing all of the old people in the neighborhood. Shortly thereafter, she and her family moved away.

When I told my DH what happened and how I handled it, he just about fell over. He was a police officer in that town. Honestly, I was looking for an excuse to beat that girl down for a few minutes. I was that angry. Thank goodness I didn't have to.

Sage04 · ‎07-10-2011

@MaryLamb, you are so bad. I love it lol. I know of a few people who did this just to get back at someone who did them wrong.

MaryLamb · ‎04-03-2019

@Carmie And that kid would have deserved a smack for physically assaukting your father. The punishment should fit the crime. That’s why I chose to do what I did. That boy left such a filthy mess on my porch at least 10 times in one month and his mother used such filthy language to speak to me that I figured they deserved to get some filthy mail!