The Idiot Defense

Apparently Mrs.L. had a child who had a child who had a child...

Mrs.L. was quite old back in around 1960. She lived next door to us when we were in the god forsaken land of Staten Island. Strange house we were in, there was an osage tree hanging over the driveway. Mrs.L. would pull back part of her fence and then come over and select whatever flowers or vegetables she found growing that she wanted. She would then casually return to her home and enjoy the stolen product(s). My mother confronted her once and she started ranting about her precious late husband Willy. That was how she handled all situations...going on about Willy.

I never actually saw anyone else try to take any items of the botanical variety, not even during the years in Rutland. If they did take, I didn't notice.

This was Attractive Young Asian Girl #14.

PS Osso - the bulb was not taken. She just ripped out to ground level. I'm thinking of growing poison oak. Only through the fence.

Can you smoke irises?

Okay here is another funny true story. Not long after Marco and I started dating we were having a cocktail at a local bar, well Marco couldn’t find his cell phone and said he thought for sure he left it on the bar. So I called it and idiot sitting next to me took it out of his pocket and answered the phone. Marco walked over grabbed it out of his hands and the guy left the bar rather quickly without saying a word.

You got trouble, then.

Erm, people back in Eureka/Arcata used to steal, yes, steal, my hydrangeas. One was one of the contractors who worked for my business partner: his excuse was his girlfriend was angry with him and he wanted to surprise her. I caught another guy in the act (hydrageas blossoms can be worth money, not least because they dry nicely) and said he could take a few if he didn't butcher the plant, and showed him how to cut so it isn't noticed. He did come back once, rang the bell so I could 'supervise'.

My kitchen window was right above that hydrangea row, so those were brave souls that trespassed.

Ooooh, strong defensive move.

Dumber than dumb..

could be we have the same neighbor?

nope.

poppies on the other hand...

Hah, the idiot even picked up the phone - Marco should have given him an ear full too!
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I was given a gardenia plant once from the office staff and I left it next to
my desk and nurtured the plant for good an entire year and when I finally saw a small white flower forming, I got so excited. I fertilized & watered the plant before heading home in the hopes to find the flower in full bloom by next morning. It was blooming all right, cut up in a small vase and sitting at our secretary's desk.

I was so spitting mad and wanted to slap her so badly, it took me good 5 minutes to calm myself down. When I told her that it took me over a year to get a flower out of the plant and how rude it was of her to just cut it off without even asking, she looked at me so utterly dumbfounded, it never even occurred to her to ask. She thought it was no big deal, well yeah, not to her....... after that, she did not last too long with us. No, this wasn't the only reason she was terminated, 99 % was for work related stuff, but that
1 % was pure vendetta.

I learned decades ago that my cubicle was not my home, and therefore never put/leave anything in the cubicle I might want to keep. So, when a nice origami animal disappeared, I realized I made the mistake to think my cubicle was my second home. I decided my leaving it there was "injustice collecting behavior," since in effect, I was giving the office the chance to be nice to me in my second home. My delusion.

Gurl rules...

I've had my own design business, been business partner/owner twice, and spent formative years at lab counters and sorta-cubicles. No one stole anything from me in those years. At one place, the honcho (laughing at calling him honcho, a good man) hung five of my big paintings in the high ceilinged space. (Oh, wait, a box was stolen back in the seventies, but that might have happened at a storage garage and not the workplace storage.)

People vary.

Cubicles weep for adornment.

I don't work in a cubicle, Foofie and I was the secretary's superior - you'd think she had more sense than that.

Well, the incident continues to perplex.

Last night, at 9:05 PM (I know because I glanced at the clock), the doorbell rang. I remained in the TV room, the Inner Sanctum (e. g. the room where there's a space heater on). RP answered the door.

And, lo and behold, it was Attractive Asian Neighbor Girl #14, AKA the ISB (Iris-Stealing, er, Babe). ISB asks if there's a blonde woman who lives in the house. RP replies in the affirmative. ISB reiterates that she doesn't know flowers, thought it was a weed but is really, really sorry and is not thinking straight because her grandmother recently died. She then presented a small bouquet to RP, which at least we know was purchased from a local florist (atoning with stolen flowers woulda been even weirder). RP thanked her and ISB went on her way.

Here's me with the flowers -


So this, apparently, still looks like a weed -


Now, I appreciate the store-bought stuff of course, and at least ISB did apologize, but really - my grandmother died??? Even if it's true, does ISB not get (there's the Idiot Defense again) just how lame that sounds? I am not wholly without sympathy but I was also unaware that bereavement entitled one to a free pass on thievery, a kind of Get-out-of-Jail-Free card for invading space, killing plants and otherwise performing mild socially unacceptable acts.

How 'bout this instead - I'm sorry; I screwed up. I wasn't thinking straight and I did a bad thing. But we are neighbors and I don't want this to color our relationship. So I wanted to apologize again for my boneheadedness. That I would have accepted and appreciated (hell, I woulda come to the door for that one).

Instead, ISB gave us the equivalent of the dog ate my conscience.

OK..it's lame, left-field logic...but here goes:

"My grandmother died..and being blinded by my grief... in my desperation, I saw a pretty, FREE 'weed' waving at me sort of in your yard.

So I value my granny so much I took the chance. See? I'm so sweet and dumb (and you bagged me) that I came to apologize with these store-bought flowers. I'm sweet, lame and contrite. Love me!"

Welcome to the perfect siglines topic.

that does seem odd - but there are odd balls every where. At the very least the idiot defense seems dumb, but at least kind (in an odd ball sort of way).