The Last Word On Nothing

I may have stolen my neighbor’s tiny cherry tomatoes right off the vine. They were so glowingly red, so warm, how could I help myself?

Maybe “stolen” is a little harsh because I didn’t have to go onto her property to get the tomatoes, we share-crop them in pots in my back driveway.  And after all, she was going away and asked if I would harvest any that came ripe while she was gone.  And I knew she was gone but I have to be honest now, I didn’t know when she was coming back.  For all I knew, she was back already.  I’m in the realm of putative petty larceny here.

I told myself that everybody does it.  We’ve been growing those tomatoes back there for years and the garbagemen occasionally swipe one.  The raccoons just take a bite and roll the tomatoes down the alley.  A neighborhood dog named Joe used to disappear off his front porch and reappear some time later with tomato on his breath.  At least the neighborhood kids ask first: “can we pick your tomatoes?”  Oh my dears, yes, of course you can.

I published my larceny on Facebook. Joe’s former owner said letting cherry tomatoes rot on the vine wasn’t neighborly.  One cousin said she stole her neighbor’s flowers but there were so many of them and besides she did it openly. Another cousin said to think of it as borrowing, and a third cousin said, “Sneak.”  Facebook is clearly not a force for social good and my cousins are not to be trusted.

And then, and THEN, my neighbor, the legal and rightful owner of those tiny cherry tomatoes, wrote on Facebook that she was going to be home the next day and she hoped some few might be left.  So not only did I not meet the criteria for actual petty larceny (depending on the state, several hundreds of dollars-worth) (I looked it up, unrigorously) (California seems to be unique in specifying larceny of vegetables), but also at the moment of the crime, my neighbor was still gone and she’d given me permission.  So I’m good, right? Right?

Right, but only legally.  Socially and morally I’m toast.  My neighbor has the gentlest, most generous heart — and because of me, she’s having to hope some her tomatoes are still left?  Tomatoes she planted, whose leaves she’s kept disease-free?  Tomatoes she has watered faithfully and when she has, she’s watered my beans and unripened tomatoes too?  What was I thinking?  I mean, yesterday my husband got into the frig and ate two pieces of strawberry bread I was saving for our weekend breakfast, and I was shattered at the iniquity of such an act. I still haven’t calmed down.

I hadn’t eaten all those tiny cherry tomatoes, maybe two-thirds of them.  Obviously I’m going to put the remaining third into a nice bowl and leave them on her porch for when she returns.  Meanwhile I’m remembering their smooth roundness, their warmth; and biting down, how they explode and distract you entirely with purest golden tomato-ness.  Maybe if I told her how much I loved them?

Nope, sorry, that’s not mitigating.  It’s the old William Carlos Williams defense.  He pretends it’s an apology but everybody knows, he’s only covering his own sorry butt.

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tiny cherry tomatoes: RosieTulips, via Flickr

First two quotes are William Bancroft Espeut, Lecture IV, Henderson, 1881; the third quote is The Maryland Code, Public General Laws, Codified, Volume 1, Compiled by John Prentiss Poe, King Bros., 1904; all quotes via Google Books.  Apparently Petty Larceny,  Vegetable, used to be more a problem than it is now.