Thursday, August 18, 2005

Grow your own!

I opened up the office the other day to discover that we were missing some pepper plants. Lots of them... four out of six to be precise. Someone had taken four of my pepper plants off the front porch and made off with them.

Thieves suck!

I don't agree with it, but I can appreciate someone having to steal to feed their family. I really don't agree with it, but I can appreciate someone having to steal to feed their habit... But what in the devil possesses people who steal for no good reason other than to have something that doesn't belong to them?

Here are my beautiful little pepper plants, nurtured from seeds, watered and chatted to; cared for in the hopes that we might be able to coax a pepper or two out of their beautiful leafy green stalks. But now... someone else is going to get to partake of their hot sweet heavenly goodness. I hope they're real wooses and they hurt themselves. Grrrrr.

We figured it was just teens messing around, because in the place of my missing pepper pots, we received two hanging flower bags... the kind that sort of look like they should be hanging from a headstone. The kind that our next-door neighbour uses to decorate her front porch! Well, at least she woke up to hers simply being out of place, and not gone.

The big problem arose when I opened up yesterday morning to discover that the thief had returned for one of the two big pots!

What was going through the thief's mind as he or she staggered down the street with an enormous pepper plant in their arms.

I called the Surete (our local police enforcement officials) to come and take a statement. They did. The sent M. Talbot... His note on the file confirmation he gave me, reads "Vol de pots"... doesn't even mention the peppers. Sigh. Oddly, he also felt the bizarre need to make a point of saying "I hope you don't think you're going to get these plants back".

Well, duh! of course I don't; but I do want them back. You know, I live in a town with a running 0% crime rate for what is now fifteen years, and the one and only crime that ever occurs, won't even get investigated because... well, because I haven't a hope in hell of getting my peppers back. There is something wrong with that mentality. It kinda makes me wonder if the reason the crime rate is 0% is because nobody bothers to report crime because it doesn't get investigated anyway.

It's times like this when I rather like the way that Catholicism deals with thieves.