Scissors don’t have legs – they can’t walk away. While I was weeding at my community garden plot, my good Gingher’s did not get up on their pointy ends like a ballerina and tip-toe away. Someone swiped them.
The main suspect was a woman who came into the garden talking loud on her cell phone – as annoying as cat shit under a couch. My scissors were lying there right by the path. I was busy staking up my tomatoes, my back to her, and didn’t bother to even say hello since she was blathering on.
This woman didn’t water, she didn’t weed, she didn’t pick anything – she wasn’t there long enough to do any of that. She talked on her phone and then drove away. Now I’m not saying she did it, but what did she come there for except to steal my scissors?
When it was time for me to leave I gathered my tools and the other things scattered around – string and extra bamboo stakes. I had this nagging feeling I was forgetting something – these day I forget something most of the time. I walked up and down my little ten by twenty foot plot but didn’t see anything else so I left.
When I got home and unloaded I thought, “Now where are those scissors?” Those Gingher’s are expensive – cost me about $30 many years ago. Silver, and the things actually cut. I have ten pairs of scissors all over this house and none will even cut a string hanging off my hem except these Gingher’s and the Betty Crocker ones I got at the Dollar Store. They cut so well I gave a pair to all my friends for Christmas. Yes, I’m cheap, I’ll admit that to anybody – I’m proud of it.
But I only use the Gingher’s to cut fabric – I took them to the garden to cut a piece of shade cloth. So I sent an email to all the garden people asking if someone “found” them (I didn’t put the word in parentheses, but you know what I mean) to please return them. This all happened on Friday.
Early Saturday morning I went to water the seeds I’d just planted. Later, while I was bent down, weeding, I heard a car door open. A few minutes after that I heard a car door again. I didn’t look up, knowing that whoever it was would probably greet me when they came in since my plot is near the gate. When I got done weeding, I stood up and looked around – no one else was in the garden except a man – he must have come in quietly. And guess what? There were my scissors. Sitting right in the open, on top of a bean seed I had just finished watering a few minutes before.
So either a miracle happened, and I’m inclined to believe that because the Lord is very good to me, or that man returned them, or the mysterious car-door-opener person I’d heard snuck in and put them there while I was bent down tugging at stubborn crab-grass.
Maybe it wasn’t that cell phone lady and I feel a little bad about fingering her as the thief. She’s such a nice woman, we’ve chatted a few times and I really like her. Her garden is beautiful, although after the scissor larceny I was hoping leaf miners and cabbage beetles would destroy her crops, but I’m over that now. I’m sure we’ll become the best of friends before the summer is over.
But I tell you what, I’ll keep one eye open when she’s around. Just in case. Scissors don’t just walk away, you know.
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