Pumpkins, Police and Apologies

Just thought I'd share our little adventure that happened last night with y'all....

Around 10:30 last night DH and I were laying on the couch watching a movie on TV. Suddenly we heard "bump, bump, bump" on the porch. We looked at each other like, "what the heck?" Then it hit me, and I hollered, "It's the pumpkins! Get 'em honey! They're taking my pumpkins!"

DH jumped up and ran out the door...all three of our dogs hot on his heels. I followed him, but I stopped to put on my shoes and grab a coat. I also turned on the porch light and grabbed the cell phone. By the time I got outside DH was a block down the hill talking to a kid on a bicycle...obviously not the one who took my pumpkins. I looked around the porch and all 7 of my big pumpkins were gone. One was smashed in the grass, another was half smashed on the sidewalk. I grabbed DH's shoes and walked down to where DH was...

He was standing under a street light talking to two young neighborhood kids and one of their Moms (a girl I went to school with). He was holding a license plate in his hand. What the heck? Everyone was laughing. DH told me to call the police, so I did. The dispatcher asked me what type of vehicle they had, if I had gotten the license plate #...I told him that wasn't a problem because I had the plate in my hand. He said, "Um, ok. Well, give it to me anyway and I'll run it." Then he told me the police would be there shortly. I kept trying to figure out how the plate had come off of the thieves' truck. Every time I asked, everyone would just start laughing so hard...and I wouldn't get a straight answer. The neighbor lady said DH almost caught the kids, she said if DH would have had shoes on he would have caught them. DH had chased the kids down the hill for a block, they tried to get into their truck to drive away but couldn't get their keys out fast enough so they decided to run for it on foot.

I ran home to get DH a coat. When I got back the police were there. A female officer by herself. She had the license plate in car and was writing a note. She asked DH how the plate came off of the truck and he answered, "Well, they always say you're supposed to take the license plate #.....and....well, I didn't have any paper to write it down....so....." The officer laughed. She finished her note and asked DH to put it on the truck's windshield. It said, "We have your license plate. You can pick it up at our office. Johnsonburg Police" She told DH that he was not acting as a representative of the police when he removed the license plate...that she could not remove the plate, but since DH already had she could take it with her. She also said she, nor we, were allowed to take the pumpkins or other Halloween decorations that were in the front seat of the truck...that would be unlawful search and seizure. We did take the pumpkins they had set on the road near the truck. She told us who owned the truck. We told the officer that we didn't want the kids to get in big trouble, but maybe to pay for the pumpkins and she agreed.

We hung around a little while after the officer left, figuring the kids were watching the truck. Then we went home and I looked up the owner of the truck in the phone book. We went for a ride past their house...just to be nosy I guess. On our way home we "happened" to notice that the truck was gone, so we went through town again on the strip the kids always cruise on during the weekends. Sure enough, we ran right into them. We were going one way, they were going the other....

So, DH throws our truck in reverse and starts following them. We are going backwards through the middle of town at this point. Really not a big deal because it's midnight and they've rolled up the streets...no other traffic. I told DH the kids were saying, "Dude, they were just pumpkins!" We follow them to a side road and they stop. They still have no license plate. A kid gets out of the passenger side...and he looks like he's going to throw up....

DH gets out of our truck. Now, DH is a big boy. Pumpkin thief is not a big boy, but is probably about 17 yrs old. I sit in the truck and watch them talk, covering my face the whole time because I don't want pumpkin thief to see me laughing. I know DH is giving him the "Did ya even think?" speech. Then I see the kid hold up 3 fingers and I realize they had only taken that many pumpkins, so we had gotten hit by more than one thief last night. Then I start to feel really bad for little, lookin' like he's gonna throw up pumpkin thief. I know DH does by this point too.

I get out of the truck to tell him two things. First thing I tell him is that we have a HUGE Doberman (which we do), and that if he had been tied out (which he never is) the kid would have gotten eaten (which he wouldn't have). I told him that I know it's just stupid, "fun" stuff they are doing, but they can really get hurt by things they don't think of....of course, he agreed (like he'd disagree with anything we said). Then I told him that I gave him credit for being man enough to get out of the truck and take his medicine...because his friend driving the truck wasn't man enough to do that! He asked if we wanted money for our pumpkins and we said no.

We went home, and on our porch was a pumpkin (one that had been in the front of the truck) with a note that said, "I'm sorry about the pumpkins. Let me know what you need. (phone number). I'm sorry about the inconvenience. Tyler XXXXX" When we ran into them they were going around town returning stuff and leaving apology notes.

You know, this is probably the only thing this kid has ever done wrong. *Sigh.* Stupid kid. He said the cops still had his plate, that he had already been to see them. I think they kept it so his parents would find out for certain...and now I feel bad for him! Stupid kid.

Don't you remember being a kid and doing something stupid and getting caught...and that sick feeling in your stomach? Tyler sure felt that last night. Stupid kid. The thing is, he is a good kid, because a "bad" kid wouldn't have gotten caught.

I told DH I want to get one pumpkin, a really, really HUGE one. I want to take it and put it right in the middle of our front walk and wrap a tow chain around it about 10 times...then it can all turn into a joke. Stupid kid.

Pretty smart of your DH to take the plate.

and yea.... i'd think that at one time in every kid's life, they do something bone headed.

It was good to hear the kid was returning all the stolen stuff.

What a fun thing to read! LOL

The good thing is, you may have scared a bit of sense into the kid.
Even if it was 'just' a pumpkin, maybe just maybe a bit of sense seeped
in during the event.

I've never actually been caught doing bad things as a child, but later
in life I wanted to make them right. Such as sending three dollars to a
woman who owned a video store. When I was a kid, I used her
bathroom and in the process, stole nail polish. Who knows what I was
thinking. Though she likely never noticed, I just had to make amends.

I also sent money back to the family of a man who owned a drug store,
as I stole a lapel pin and a few other items of low value when I worked
there. Shame on me! But I did make it right later in life.

Ah, that feels much better, now I can clear my conscience!

KM

Excuse me for a moment while I wipe my eyes from laughing so hard!!! He will NEVER do anything like that again.

My mother was a police officer in SoCal. We kids knew the benefits of behaving ourselves. But...all 5 of us got into trouble at one time or another. But only once, I can tell you. Just the look on mom's face can STILL bring the shake into my knees.

that is such a funny story....

not to hihack the thread....but another holiday story came to mind....it was literally xmas eve....and a cold one at that....we have a front fenced yard and i had just gotten my puppy about 2 weeks b4....i would let him out in the front yard to do his business....plus he kinda liked paling around with the cats....; well, all of a sudden he starts barking his guts out BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK....i go to the door and tell him to no bark....to no avail and he was getting louder....it was about 11; 30 at night....bark bark bark bark bark....so i decide i had to go see what it was about.....i get my coat and shoes on and go outside to see what in the world he is barking his guts out about....and look the way he is barking and to what do my wandering eyes appear....SANTA CLAUS....literally, getting in a car 2 doors down...!!!!;
well, my boy gromet was gonna protect me from santa claus....i emailed his breeder and she was so alarmed thinking that as reading i was going to say my boy had gotten dognapped or something.....but it was kinda a cute story of the xmas i got my puppy gromet:)

I don't think this thread can be hijacked, so no worries! I love to hear everyone's stories! I can just see your puppy protecting you, awww!

I can't imagine having a Mom who is/was a police officer. I never thought of that. That would be scary. You wouldn't get away with anything, ever! Mother's intuition + a police officer's too...a kid doesn't stand a chance!

Wuvie, that is such a sweet post. The only thing I think I've ever really stolen is candy from the bulk candy isle when I was about 8 years old, and I felt sooooo guilty for years and years. It's so wonderful that you made up for those things, most folks would write it off as something stupid they did as a kid, that all kids do.

Oh, no, wait, I did steal something. I was in the 6th grade. My friend and I hit the lost and found box at school and we took money out of someone's purse. I think it was like $3, and we split it. I still remember it was a shiny, blue metallic purse. Wish I knew who that purse had belonged to, I could do Wuvie's good deed and send them back their money. Stupid kid me.

Yeah, having a parent as an officer was something different. None of the other kids we hung around with dared do anything wrong.

I work closely with law enforcment now myself and boy could I tell you stories! Sheesh! The stupid things kids do.

Enjoyed both your stories...I'd have been worried though for DH as you never know what some could do when confronted...perhaps your events of the night and the confrontation will cure his night escapades...is disappointing though, to decorate your home and have it vandalized...but, on the other hand, you've had a full evening of entertainment as did the neighbors...lol...

The girl down the hill that I had gone to school with told me to grease the pumpkins with something. We couldn't figure out what to use though...maybe Vaseline. She's figuring that if we did that maybe the pumpkins would slide out of their hands...or at least the kids would end up with stained shirts, lol! I thought that was a good one.

Pumpkin stealing is rampant in our town...about the only bad thing that happens here. When we put the pumpkins out I was thinking about tying twine to them and then putting a bunch of empty soda cans on the other end of the twine. The underneath of our front porch steps is open (wooden steps), so I could just hide the cans under there. Then when the kids try to snatch the pumpkins they would make such a racket that most likely they'd drop the pumpkin and run...but not come back.

My favorite pumpkin theft deterrent idea came from one of the neighbor kids though. He said to use the twine but have it rigged up to a bucket above the pumpkins...yepper, to dump something yucky on the thieves. I would really want to get that on video though!

Vaseline is great as well as baby oil and it will help keep your pumpkins fresher if they're carved.

I can just hear the racket a bunch of cans would make!!! LOL Too funny!

OooOOOh, baby oil. Now that would work. I wouldn't even have to touch them, just flip the cap on the bottle and squirt!

The pumpkins that got smashed hadn't been carved yet because we bought them so early this year. We were waiting to carve them...but now I'm thinking we'll carve the two we got back and maybe douse them with some baby oil...just to keep them fresh, no other reason, tee hee hee.

Something else I wanted to ask y'all about...do kids do some kind of "perfume bomb" nowadays? The night that all of this happened every time I'd come back up to the house for something all I could smell was cheap girl's perfume. The whole front yard/garden reeked of it. I walked around the corner of the house, no smell. I walked up on the street, no smell. I walked down the sidewalk, no smell. It was all in our yard. That night we figured that someone running through the yard dropped something and it spilled...but the next day I searched everywhere (puppy helping) and never found anything. So, now I have to wonder if we got bombed with perfume or something? The smell was gone the next day, but that night it was so strong that I could taste it, literally. I've never heard of anything like this, but it would seem to make scents. (Ok, bad pun)

No, Heather, that was a GOOD pun! 8-) I've never heard of perfume bombs but that doesn't mean they don't exist. maybe somebody did drop something but had time to grab it up while you were out looking for the culprits.

Ok, get this....just dropped lunch off for DH while he's at work. This will let you know just how small our town is....

There were two kids that DH chased that night, but we only got to talk to one of them, the kid who owned the truck. Rumor has it that the kid who owns the truck's bestest friend is DH's former boss' kid. Former boss is (how do I word this nicely?)...we'll just say he's one of the few people I've ever heard DH complain about. This guy treated my honey bad for a long time.

Now, I can't help but think that it would have really been something to have talked to that kid! That would have been an interesting conversation when we said, "Who are your parents?" Can you imagine? LMBO!

I do just want to say that this wouldn't have changed what we ended up doing. We are talking about pumpkins and kids being....kids. This just added another interesting little twist to everything and I thought I'd share it.

pretty funny:) gotta love small towns...ours is 1800

Ours is just about double that Sticks. We've been talking a lot about moving lately and the thought of a big city just send chills down my spine. I'm so small town that I can't cross the street without help if there's actually any traffic!

our town loses 200 people every census....so who knows where we will be in 50 yrs..

I hope getting caught will make this kid rethink his choices. It isn't so much fun when you get caught!
Our town is 600 people...no stop lights!

LOL @ both of you! In 50 years it'll probably be the most popular place around. We used to have 2 stop lights, then they took one out. No kidding. Right in the middle of town at the main intersection they took the stop lights out and replaced them with stop signs. It took a while for folks to get used to it.

Late at night a few years back, our doorbell rang, scaring the be-jeebers out of us. It was a police officer, which scared us even more (we had teens at the time). The nice officer was trying to keep a straight face, and asked us if we owned the Christmas lights that were now out in the middle of the street. Sure enough, some dumb kid had tried to run off with our lights. The officer wanted to know if we wanted to file a report.

I was in the background, and started laughing. My husband started laughing then too, because he knew what I was thinking. When he was about 8, he had started taking just a few bulbs from each of the the neighbors lights, thinking if he had enough, maybe his dad would put lights on their house, too. (they didn't have two nickels). He got caught, and had to go to every neighbor to return the bulbs and give his apology, and had to do yard work for each family as his punishment. He shared the story with the officer and declined to file the report. We went back to bed hugging and lauging. Dumb kids!

LMBO!!! Thanks for sharing that Cathy, that is hilarious!

The police called me yesterday to double check that Tyler had apologized (and paid us if we wanted him to). They told me they weren't going to give him his license plate back till they knew he had taken care of everything. I felt so bad for him, I could just picture him standing in the police station with his tail between his legs.

Just think, you may have saved this kid from a future of criminal behavior! He sure will think twice before he pulls a bone-head stunt again.

That is a GREAT story! The part about your DH grabbing the plate is hilarious! Kind of feel sorry for the little prankster.

Here's a story about pumpkins my Dad must have told us kids a hundred times or more.
My Grandfather was Cheif of Police in Amhearst Ohio, where Dad grew up. He and some of his little buddies ( Dad at 12 or 13) were throwing pumpkins off of a bridge one night at headlights!! He said they would see the lights and chuck them off the bridge. Well, he said " here come a light and off went the pumpkin" All I could hear/see was a flash of blue light, and a whoop whoop", and they took off running.
He thought he had got away until Grandpa came home for dinner. Grandad asked where he had been. Dad lied of course. Then he said Grandad threw his new toboggan, one of those with the ball on top, right into his dinner plate!
Grandpa said " No you weren't, by the way you lost this in the brush when you took off running" .
OUCH ! Busted!
The pumpkin had knocked the bracket for the light off one side of the cop car and broke a light.!
Needless to say Dad got grounded, whooped, and had to work off the cost of fixing the car.
What a dangerous stunt that was. Dumb kids. That would have been in the late 40's.

My daughter and some friends from the youth group at church , that's right , I said it, church group, went all over the neighborhood one year re-doing all the neighbors Christmas decorations. They took one neighbors lawn ornaments and set them up at another neighbors and visa versa until the entire block was done, including our house.
It must have taken hours. These kids were soo proud of their handy work, they laughed for hours!!
Geez, I got a lot of pranksters in my family.

Crash, I am howling! I don't know which is funnier, the story about your Dad or your daughter!

Ooooh, can you imagine how furious your Grandfather was when he found that toboggan? Can't ya just hear the "No good, rotten kids these days!" going through his head...then he finds out it's HIS kid! LOL

I have to say, though, that what your DD did is one of the best I've heard of. She didn't do any damage...and was smart enough to include her own house so not to look suspicious. Maybe she just wanted everyone to be extra neighborly that Christmas and figured that was the only way she could get them to visit with each other? In any case, it's one for the books!

You know, even that one made me laugh! We would sit a peek out of windows to watch the expressions on my neighbors faces! We had one man that would that would step out , look around and shake his head , and go back in. In awhile he'd come back out, do it again. Eventually, they found out. Luckily the majority , had a sense of humor, like you did. She did have to give some apologies, and put some stuff back.
Her partners in crime got away scott free.

I was soo glad you posted your story, I have been giggling over all morning! Thanks

PS. How do you punish a kid when you, yourself, cannot keep a straight face?

This message was edited Oct 17, 2007 12:13 PM