🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 12 Jul 2005 08:30:03 -0700, "The Ranger"
<cuhulain_-98@yahoo.com> wrote:
> he knew you well enough to think you wouldn't mind.

<fruit poaching

>No, no such luck. I caught another this morning, an older lady that I've
>never seen walk through the neighborhood. She was also _a lot_ more
>brazen, refusing to back down when I asked if she was going to leave any
>of the greener fruit to ripen. She sneered a tsk at me and turned her
>back... 'Til I turned the hose on her. I don't think she'll be using my
>portion of the sidewalk anytime soon.

<snort!>  Way to go! I used the hose on a couple of extra persistent
Jehovah's Witnesses once, but I've never had to hose down the
neighbors.

I do sympathize, it's amazing how manners and civilized behavior are
chucked right out when people think they're getting something for
free. I used to plant some ornamental peppers near the street, but, as
you saw, people would snatch off half of a branch just to get at the
pepper. If they'd asked, I would have shared those and more of the
ones from the main garden, I always have plenty.

When I went on vacation last year, I told my friends to please help
themselves to whatever peppers and tomatoes came ripe while I was
gone. I got home to find the peppers stripped of everything but the
smallest, unripe peppers. The tomato plants *were* stripped, nary a
green tomato left, much less anything that might be getting ready to
turn. I asked around and figured out which person had done that, and
gently explained that perhaps she'd been a bit greedy. She thought it
was funny, and said that she had to get while the getting was good,
because once I was home I'd be eating the peppers and tomatoes.
Well, yeah, it's my garden. She asked me when I was going on vacation
this year, and got rather huffy when I told her she wasn't welcome to
pick this year.


Penelope