Take your stinking paws off them, you damn dirty ape.

Fucking bastard. I know it's someone that lives around here because they are obviously watching them just as closely as I. Two more are gone just days before I was to pick them. Just like the first time. They've gotten four; I've gotten none. It's really a bummer. They probably think it's funny. I think it's mean. I thought those were the last two that were viable, but I saw today I have one that needs a week or so and two that are babies yet.

I've been trying to decide how best to make it known that I am watching for them.  I considered just ripping up all the vines and putting them in a pile with a sign that read "Here. Why don't you just go ahead and take the rest of them and get it over with, jerk.". I also considered simply putting out a sign with just a sad face or middle finger or the phrase "If I Find Out Who You Are, I Will Break Your Fingers". (The first time this happened I printed a sign but didn't put it up. It said "Yes, I noticed. Yes, I am sad. Yes, you suck.") I also have thought about being an asshole right back and booby-trapping them. Somehow. I'm not really sure what I could do to them that would keep them alive long enough to get stolen yet make them nasty or something. But wouldn't it be fun to put a sign up the day after it disappears that informs them that their new melon was mulched with my own poo?

It really pisses me off and honestly makes me sad. It's less about the watermelons themselves; I actually don't eat them much but was excited to see that I could grow something fun. I was excited to share them with my friends. So what upsets me and gets me down is that someone I haven't done anything to is perfectly alright with destroying something I made and something that isn't theirs, and they don't care enough about someone they've never met to leave just one. All I need is one. I was going to give the others away anyway. I just wanted to have the chance to do so. I am really sick and tired of being shit on by other people for no reason. I guess that's what it really comes down to. Why do people just shit on everyone else? 

For some reason I never thought about bugs just up and dropping dead like people sometimes do, but I saw the aftermath of it Sunday afternoon. My friend Brandon and I walked to the Co-op to get some brunch particles to put together. On the way back up my street, right over the sidewalk and at just about eye-level for most people, was a dead spider. Hanging from a strand of silk attached to (most likely) her leg. Just blowing in the wind. Nothing wrong, no missing pieces or dried out in the sun or anything like that. Not even crunchy yet, so it must have been fresh. Hanging there. I guess she was up in the tree limbs or the power lines, just going about her business weaving herself a nice fresh new web, and then BAM. Whatever it is that happens to arachnids when they stop living... I tried to get a photo but without a decent background couldn't get the camera to focus. We took her down, and Brandon decided he wanted to keep her. I almost felt like we should give her a little memorial, but since I never met this particular spider I'm not sure I'd have thought of anything to say.