I Say Tomato, You Say Marijuana

When I was growing up in the 80s, my parents were basically hippies. We lived in a rural area. We raised chickens, ducks, and goats and grew our own vegetables, some of them in a greenhouse, along with other kinds of plants.

One night around midnight, we heard a crash and a revving car engine. We ran outside and saw that someone had broken into our greenhouse and stolen some of our plants.

We moved some things around and went back to bed. Then, around two in the morning, there was a knock at the door. It was the cops. They said some kids had been pulled over for reckless driving and had confessed to breaking into our greenhouse and stealing our plants. They wanted to investigate the damage.

My parents took them to the greenhouse, and the cops asked them to estimate the value of the stolen plants and the damage to our property. My mother made up a ridiculously high number, which they put into their report.

The plants that were stolen were tomato plants, some of them with unripe tomatoes on them. Furthermore, in order to get to the tomato plants, the kids had to pass by our actual — immature — potted marijuana plants, which by this time were safely hidden in our bathroom. The cops gave us a funny knowing look, but they had no probable cause to search our house, after all.

And my parents ended up making a tidy profit on the busted screen door of our greenhouse.