A Letter To The Unknown Person Who Stole My Fruit

Dude, WTF? The whole tree? What, did you sneak over in the dead of night and put them stealthily into grocery bags, hoping the neighbors wouldn't see you? Did you bring accomplices with you, to hurry the theft? What on earth could anyone do with all of those oranges? Are you that hard up for vitamin C? Got a cold? Got a lot of friends with colds? Or do you just really, really, really like orange juice?

If it was, like, Jean Valjean stealing them to feed his starving, scurvy-ridden children, I'd understand, you know. I'm not an extremist when it comes to property, most of the time. But I suspect you weren't picking them out of need, but rather out of sheer entitlement. You did it because you could, because you could get away with it. At least, that's how it looks in my mind's eye, I don't really know for sure.

You know, I caught you guys once. Or twice. And the neighbor's always telling me about people stealing that fruit. Feigned contrition, not very convincing when you've still got the armfuls of oranges in your hands, backing towards your idling car one foggy night. And they weren't even ripe then, that's the painful thing about it. My fruit got jacked so that some larcenous punk could get the cartoon cat-after-eating-alum face and toss it in the trash.

They're ripe now, or rather they were ripe, before you took them. I was leaving them on the tree to let them get good and sweet before I juiced them. And then that storm got everything wet, and knocked some fruit off the tree; maybe you thought the fallen fruit was a sign of a neglected tree? Fair game? Last year I picked them too much at once, but this time I was going to be good and work my way through the fruit at a measured pace. Whoops.

You know, I would have given you several if you'd just asked for them. Heck, I've got a scofflaw side, I wouldn't really have even begrudged just boosting one or two as you walked by. But this bespeaks organization and planning, fruit theft in the first degree. Harder to forgive or overlook, really.

Of course, there is still some left. A fair amount, really. Perhaps I'm overreacting. At least it wasn't the peaches, after all. But still, the whole thing kind of bugs.

Maybe I need a llama.