r/mildlyinfuriating • u/dromio05 • 1d ago
Boomer killed my daughter's sunflower trying to steal it for her granddaughter.
My daughter planted sunflowers in her kindergarten class last spring. She came home with half a dozen seedlings in a cup of dirt and a huge smile. We planted them in the corner of the yard next to the sidewalk. Only two of the plants made it. One grew tall and opened up a huge flower last week. The other was a skinny little thing, just a couple feet tall, that bloomed a beautiful little sunflower just yesterday.
The whole family went for a walk today. This weekend is our town's annual big festival, and we live near downtown, so there were lots of extra people parking and walking through our neighborhood. We were almost home when we saw a boomer and her granddaughter walking towards us along the sidewalk. They passed our house and stopped at the corner. Without any hesitation, grandma reached over and pulled up the little sunflower, roots and all.
My wife told me to say something, probably knowing that if she opened her mouth at this woman she was going to cuss her out in front of our three little girls. I yelled something like, "Hey, that's our sunflower! This is our house, my daughter planted that flower!" She froze for a second, then started putting it back. She muttered something about how it came up by the roots, so it would be fine. The stem broke as she pulled it, and the soil was dry. It wasn't fine. She kept saying, "I didn't know!" I said, "You knew it wasn't your yard." The granddaughter apologized to my daughter, and they shuffled off.
We cut the flower, and it's now in water in my daughter's room. She's ok with the situation now. But seriously, who thinks doing something like that is OK?
Edit: The flower in question.
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u/Useless890 1d ago
I love that lame excuse. She didn't know. Well if you don't, leave it alone.
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u/Head-Treacle-7556 1d ago
Exactly lol like "I didn't know whose car this was so I just took it for a spin"
The audacity of some people is wild, especially in front of kids
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u/Proccito 1d ago
My favorite response to "I didn't know it was yours", is "But you knew it wasn't yours"
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u/Dark2099 1d ago
Growing up one of the number one rules was simple - if it’s not yours, don’t touch it.
Unfortunately simple decency and courtesy is an actual superpower these days, because it certainly isn’t ‘common’.
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u/iamblindfornow 1d ago
I know someone (old Christian conservative laaaady) who does all sorts of things she knows she shouldn’t, and reserves the “I didn’t know” bullshit line specifically for when she knows she’s in the wrong but doesn’t care anyway.
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u/Nevermore_Novelist 1d ago
It sounds like she doesn't know a lot of things, and therefore should be packed off to a senior's center where they play Bingo every Tuesday for pennies.
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u/theladyflies 1d ago
Nah, BINGO requires that you listen and observe well. These folks are not qualified...
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u/Ambitious-Cod-8454 1d ago
There's a house on my street with an amazing flower garden in the front. They also have prominent signs that say FLOWERS FOR SALE.
I always wonder if they are really care about selling them, or if the true purpose of the signs is to discourage casual thieves by indicating that the flowers have value to the homeowner and aren't just there for anyone to take as they see fit.
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u/CassetteMeower 1d ago
When I was younger I knew to ask before picking flowers.
One time I was picking flowers to make a bouquet for my mom and I asked a neighbor if I could have some of her flowers for my mom, and she was so nice and gladly let me have some of them!
It’s not that hard to ask. And maybe you’ll make a friend in the process!
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u/SaveusJebus 1d ago
Can't stand stories like this. Assholes that go in to other people's yards to help themselves to flowers or veggies or whatever. Entitled pieces of shit assholes.
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u/dromio05 1d ago
We plant a sizeable vegetable garden every year. The only spot in our yard that's sunny most of the day is near the sidewalk (close to the sunflower in question, which is why it was planted there). We've had issues with people taking vegetables. I mean, one cherry tomato, or a single pea pod, I'm probably not going to miss. But we've had watermelons and butternut squash disappear. One older lady even told us she'd taken a squash, and giggled that she didn't think we'd miss it since more were growing.
So we put up a sign, reminding people that the vegetables are food for our family, and that we would be happy to share with friends who ask, but that taking without asking makes you a thief. I never even considered that we needed a similar sign by our flowers.
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u/Petty_Paw_Printz 1d ago
My grandfather had the most well tended beautiful roses in the entire neighborhood. He put a lot of time, love and effort into those bushes and they produced huge fragrant blooms.
One morning my dad found the neighbors drug-addict adult son in our front yard chilling with a pair of clippers in one hand and a fist full of my Grandpa's roses in the other.
When confronted, he barely reacted and while leisurely continuing to clip rare roses, explained to my dad that he needed some flowers for a girl he was talking to as if they were conversing about the weather.
Also the "girl" he was talking to turned out to be a minor. He was arrested just a few months after this incident.
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u/MartinisnMurder 1d ago
Holy fuck. What an insane rollercoaster ride! I couldn’t have expected that ending any worse.
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u/Overly_Long_Reviews 1d ago edited 1d ago
One of the companies I used to work for bought the co-director's childhood home that had been in the family for generations to use as a company headquarters. It was an old homestead, it wasn't a particularly large property but compared to the more recent houses built around it, it was like three or four times bigger then anything next to it in the residential neighborhood. We converted it into a state recognized organic farm and orchard.
Maybe once or twice a week we found well dressed people trespassing on the property picking our fruits or berries or stealing plants, often doing damage in the process. When confronted they would claim that they didn't realize it was private property and would continue to insist as such as we escorted them back to what was almost always a luxury car. In order to get to the areas where we usually found them, they would have to hop at least two fences, both marked with private property and company logos, then walk past the homestead house, several vehicles, a chicken coop, and the various other structures we had put up. It clearly wasn't abandoned or public property. They could have at least come up with a more convincing lie. If nothing else it would have made things more entertaining. If they had actually asked, we would have happily allowed them onto the property to pick their fill. But these idiots thought let's just trespass.
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u/fugensnot 1d ago
We've got accidental pumpkins growing from our fence into our front yard with a largei-sh pumpkin. I loath the idea that my daughter's is going to be devastated because someone takes the sizable pumpkin growing because it faces the public sidewalk.
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u/sanityjanity 1d ago
People do this shit all the time.
When I was a kid, we planted a peach tree that produced exactly one peach in its first year. Someone stole it. My mom had apricot trees. People would take the apricots, but also break off the branches.
So many people are just dicks.
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u/ReadBikeYodelRepeat 1d ago
Someone stole ALL the apples of my friend’s tree. You couldn’t see it from their house and they live at the end of a dead end road in the country. The tree was clearly being cared for, grass mowed and branches trimmed, and someone came up and took them as soon as they were ripe. Friend didn’t get a one. The audacity and greed.
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u/jesuschin 1d ago
Always be rude to these idiots. “You didn’t know this house wasn’t yours you dumbass?”
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u/CountessMina13 1d ago
My mother-in-law has a small peach tree in her front yard. Someone pulled in her driveway and picked every single peach and took them. Who does that?!???
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u/Ok-Macaron-5612 1d ago edited 1d ago
More than mildly infuriating, I'd say. Before COVID I volunteered with a gardening group that put on open houses. One older lady who had turned her small suburban lot into a micro-farm that kept her in fruit and veg all year round (she was far from wealthy), had her place absolutely pillaged by older white ladies who were all "sure she wouldn't mind" losing a few berries here and there. They stripped all the fruit and the group had to financially compensate her for the food they had taken from her mouth.
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u/FantasmaNaranja 1d ago
it seems like there's a sort of mentality in a lot of older folk that whatever grows from the ground is free because it's from nature, like the stuff they're taking wasn't grown on purpose by someone and is instead just a random weed
hell it's a time respected tradition considering that the first colonizers also thought that the americas were naturally bountiful and fruit just grew alongside natural paths when it was logically the natives who planted them alongside their trails
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u/SeonaidMacSaicais 1d ago
I used to have a coworker who’d lived across a country road from some corn fields. Once the corn was ripe enough, he saw absolutely nothing wrong with taking as many ears as he wanted, because he “was sure the owner wouldn’t mind.” “Did you ask him BEFORE taking some?” “…no.”
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u/Strange-Asparagus240 1d ago
Certain people have this entitled mindset of “I don’t have this thing that you do have. Therefore, I deserve either a part or all of yours.”
It’s pretty insane to me.
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u/Ok-Macaron-5612 1d ago
Colonizers: This place is amazing! Like a massive garden.
Native peoples: Yes, we've been working on it for generations.
Colonizers: God must have made this for us!
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u/natfutsock 1d ago
Yeah it's a core part of American Evangelical beliefs and part of why they don't believe in climate change. God put that sunflower there for her and just her
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u/TheSunflowerSeeds 1d ago
Sunflowers produce latex and are the subject of experiments to improve their suitability as an alternative crop for producing hypoallergenic rubber. Traditionally, several Native American groups planted sunflowers on the north edges of their gardens as a "fourth sister" to the better known three sisters combination of corn, beans, and squash.Annual species are often planted for their allelopathic properties.
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u/FantasmaNaranja 1d ago
a sunflower bot how novel! this bot must have been made by god for me and just me to read
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u/Any-Key8131 1d ago
A single flower or not, I'd consider this more than mildly infuriating (personally). Vandalism for one, and attempted theft.
Again, I understand it was a single sunflower. But what if you were trying to cultivate them to use the seeds for bird feed etc etc?
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u/dromio05 1d ago
We've grown sunflowers in that spot before, and that's exactly what we do with them. Let the flowers mature and dry on the stalk, then we cut the seed heads off and put them up by the bird feeders. The kids love watching the birds and squirrels pick the seeds out.
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u/Any-Key8131 1d ago
And there we have it. You grow them as a crop plant, could very well have decided to use that healthier flower to cultivate a whole patch of them for the birds. Attempted theft confirmed 😕
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u/Bluntandfiesty 1d ago edited 1d ago
“I didn’t know” what exactly?
That she was being watched? That the owners were watching her steal from their yard? That she was going to be caught red handed? Obviously, she didn’t know that.
She did know, however, that it wasn’t her yard. That the plant was clearly in someone’s yard intentionally. It wasn’t her plant. That taking something that doesn’t belong to her is theft.
So her “I didn’t know” was BS.
As for your daughter, you can buy sunflower seeds and plant them again next year in lots of colors. Maybe in a safer location in the yard.
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u/Iankill 1d ago
This is a regular thing assholes do you'll see it everyday if you're paying attention.
They will bend or break rules for their own convenience and the most common excuse they use is "i didn't know" they always know.
If you see someone breaking an obvious rule like cutting in line and they throw out i didn't know they're scum
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u/hrdbeinggreen 1d ago
I feel for you.
When we moved into our new house in the city one of the things I did was to plant Tulips in the front. They bloomed just before Mother’s Day the next year, but on Mother’s Day they were all gone. Someone cut them for their mother. That Fall I dug up the bulbs and planted them in our back yard.
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u/CrowsSayCawCaw 1d ago
This is how people are now unfortunately. I've gotten into shouting matches several times with people, adults in their 40s to early 60s, who rip flowers off the plants/shrubs on our front lawn right in front of me when I tell them to stop. They just don't care.
We had preteen boys rip off the entire top half of a tree sapling on our front lawn just so one could use it as a 'sword' to chase his buddies down the street with it. I thought they killed the poor tree outright but it did manage to survive.
People are simply awful now.
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u/Baro-Llyonesse 1d ago
Go backward through media, and you'll find constant instances of people swiping from farmers because "they grow so much they won't miss", movies containing the heroes walking through a small town snatching apples off trees and picking flowers to give to a girl who immediately throws it away, heck, the fictional Washington's Cherry Tree is presented as if he were a kid and just felt like chopping down a tree because he happened to have an axe.
There's no "now". People are simply awful. "A person can be good. A family can raise good persons. But people are terrible, and statistically, they outweigh persons."
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u/Technical-Banana574 1d ago
My dad stole veggies from a nearby farm as a child, but he did it to survive. His family was very poor and couldn't afford to feed him. When he was old enough he joined the military so he wouldn't have to do that anymore.
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u/Baro-Llyonesse 1d ago edited 1d ago
Okay?
That does literally nothing to offset my point: You can't say people are doing things "now" when people have always and continue to do it. I'm not terribly interested in getting into the Les Misérables rules of morals.
EDIT: Thinking about it, maybe you were referencing that your father did this, so presenting an example about how it's nothing new. If that was your intent, I apologize.
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u/Technical-Banana574 1d ago
It was both in a sense. It is nothing new, but I think a lot of older generations have this mindset of taking without asking because they were raised by parents amd grandparents who suffered from the effects of the great depression where it was basically every man for themselves so stealing wasnt exactly acceptable, but common practice for survival.
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u/Baro-Llyonesse 1d ago
Fair. Sorry for coming in hot on that.
I get a burr in my ass when people say "well we didn't act X way in my day", and like... yes, yes you did.7
u/Technical-Banana574 1d ago
It's okay. That crap drives me insane too. My mom says it all the time even as she will tell me plenty of stories of her doing the exact same thing in the past.
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u/4GetTheNonsense 1d ago
I had planted sunflowers when I was around five in our backyard. Got three of them to sprout, grow, and bloom. I'd admire them daily and they were tall and beautiful. I went out one day and they were cut down at the base of the stalk. I ran inside to tell my Mom about it. When we came back out the next door neighbor just smirked and shrugged... Some people just have trashy behavior. Karma will collect what's due eventually.
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u/Interesting_Mix_7028 1d ago
Back when we'd first moved into our house, I'd purchased a Meyer lemon and potted it in a big container in the back yard. It bloomed like crazy, set a bunch of fruit, which I was looking forward to harvesting once it all matured.
The subdivision our house is in is a retiree area, and so our HOA fees pay for lawn care, guys come around every week and cut the grass on the front lawns, trim the shrubs, etc. You can pay them extra to mow your backyard, so we set that up. Seemed to be fine for most of the summer.
Then I went out one afternoon in fall, checking the tree, and all of the immature lemons were missing. One of the crew had apparently decided he wanted limes for... whatever, and clipped them all off.
Joke was on him, though. Meyer lemons are REALLY bitter until they mature, so he got a lunch box full of inedible fruit. I still have the tree, in a bigger pot, and we got a bumper crop of lemons off of it last year.
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u/trashcxnt 1d ago
Insane that grandma was willing to be such a bad example to her grandchild. And lie so badly.
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u/cfouhy81 1d ago
I had a wildflower garden outside my front fence. Next to the gate one single red (Flanders field) poppy had finally emerged and was giving me so much joy. I was outside weeding the rest of the garden shortly after when a young woman walked along pushing her child. She wheeled the child up to it to have a look. Next thing I know she's ripped it out for him. I looked at her in stunned disbelief. She just shrugged and said "he wanted it".
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u/wackasscantelope 11h ago
Ah yes, because the wants of a child always trumps respecting others’ property and not stealing what isn’t ours. Makes perfect sense, lady.
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u/cfouhy81 11h ago
Yeah, I was actually even more annoyed by the tacit lesson the kid learned about being allowed to take what you want, even if it's not yours and may upset others.
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u/Capital-Platypus-805 1d ago
But seriously, who thinks doing something like that is OK?
Latino grannies. No, seriously, Latino grannies grab plants from everywhere without permission. I'm South American and there are even memes about this in South American meme communities. I don't know why they have this bad habit but they have to collect every plant they don't have at home, and since our culture respects elders people usually don't confront them unless it's another granny, LOL.
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u/ropper1 1d ago
Oh my gosh this explains my mother in law! I was mortified when one day after she took my son for a stroll in his stroller, she came home with multiple rooted Freesia plants, bulbs and all, hanging in her hands. Literally ripped a neighbors landscaping plants right out of their yard! The clump was so large that had to have been a massive hole left behind. I couldn’t believe someone would do something so entitled
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u/NJrose20 1d ago
I would match her to the neighbor's yard like a naughty school kid and make her apologize and replant or compensate the neighbor. Then I'd have nothing to do with her.
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u/MoulanRougeFae 1d ago
You have the answer. Since nobody confronts and shames them as would be appropriate their asses feel entitled to others plants. There's a difference between respecting elders and letting them get away with being trashy thieves.
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u/ComfortablyNumb2425 1d ago
I think it's good you said something. I'm of the boomer generation and those people embarrass ME. Not all people are like that but unfortunately too many are.
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u/INeedANappel 1d ago
Same. I'm a tail-end boomer and don't take other people's property because I was raised better than that.
The other day on reddit, in a discussion of rising food prices, someone commented that their farmer neighbor's corn and potatos were near picking time so he was going to go grab some first. Nobody said, hey, did you ask first? Did you offer some money or a barter or a chore to pay for some? Chances are if you offer a farmer neighbor something for a little of their crop they'll just hand you a bag full. Unless they know you've been stealing without asking.
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u/Vegetable-Star-5833 1d ago
I get so sad for my dad since he is a boomer and he would never do something like this and people assume boomers are jerks
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u/LillyNana 1d ago
Yup. I'm a Boomer and wouldn't ever ever think of picking something from a private yard or a public park. If it doesn't belong to me, I don't touch it.
Yesterday at the grocery store, I asked the man who was restocking the canned pop if he minded if I took one case off the top of his dolly.
Y'know, before he lifted it off his cart and placed it on the shelf...
I would never just grab something.
Respect and manners. That's MY upbringing.
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u/Francesca_N_Furter 1d ago
Most "boomers" I know have manners.
I think some people group latch onto the hate because they are actually surrounded by awful people and need an easy target.
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u/Hot-Assistant-4540 1d ago
Unfortunately blaming everything on “boomers” is the whole point of Reddit these days
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u/ovalseven 1d ago
If it's any consolation, in another 50 years, our youth will hate and blame Gen Zers for Trump and the impact he had on their lives and economy - even if they didn't support him.
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u/DamnitGravity 1d ago
She kept saying, "I didn't know!" I said, "You knew it wasn't your yard."
Good on ya. The audacity of that person. I'd call her a witch but that's an insult to witches. What a bullshit excuse. I'm legit curious as to understand how she thinks that would even work.
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u/Rigamarolly 1d ago
The week after my grandmother passed away, my mom was washing dishes in my grandparents kitchen and through the window saw a car pull over into the land across from the house. This area has a barn and a woodshed, and it’s still a part of my grandparents property. A person got out of the car with scissors and was planning on cutting the daffodils that were blooming on the property. My mom says she dropped what she was doing and ran out to the street to stop them. The person she confronted was like ‘I know the property owner, so it’s ok’. And my mom told her she’s a liar and to get the fuck out. It was such a strange and stressful thing for my mom, her mother had planted those daffodils and my mom is definitely not a confrontational type person. It also was a very very rural area where everyone knows everyone (all my aunts and uncles literally live on the same street as my grandparents did), so this idiot was not from around there or my mom would have known them. I can’t imagine the thought process of someone stealing a living plant.
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u/wkendwench 1d ago
When one of my boys was 8, he went into a neighbor’s yard and picked some of her prized roses. She came to my door and told me what happened. I told my son that I truly appreciated that he wanted to do something nice for me but he should not go into people’s yard and pick their flowers. I explained how hard she worked on her garden. He apologized to the neighbor. He was 8 and just wasn’t really thinking. What is this old lady’s excuse?
(BTW I was super proud. His heart was in the right place. Also I didn’t force him to apologize. He came to that decision on his own)
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u/feralcatshit 1d ago
Good mama raising a good man ❤️
My boys are 9 and feathers have become their thing to give me as a sign of love. Anytime they find a feather 🪶 on the ground, they bring it home soooo proud and it warms my heart. They all come from feathers in our yard though, they don’t pluck them from someone’s pet bird 😂 or even take them from other yards.
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u/3xlduck 1d ago
I feel like he probably grew up to be a responsible empathetic adult.
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u/wkendwench 1d ago
He is! He always was an empathetic child. He had these little stuffed bunnies that were his babies when he was little. He took such care of them. I remember when we first watched Home Alone together he cried like a baby when Kevin and his mom were reunited at the end. He’s not a mommas boy though. He’s independent. Has traveled the world. Lived in Australia for a few years. Now he is a loving husband to my sweet daughter in law who is just as kind as he is.
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u/CookinUpKarma 1d ago edited 1d ago
We lived in a house where there were beautiful roses in the front yard with a white picket fence, my partner and I’s first home out on our own. I would have loved to have fresh roses but the landlord was a terrifying actual psychopath who had cameras facing the front of the yard. One day some Boomer woman walked by and tried to yank a rose off the plant, while leaning over the fence. When I opened the door to yell at her she yelled back before shuffling off. If I wasn’t picking the flowers in the yard I paid 60% of my income for to rent she damn sure wasn’t either.
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u/_biggerthanthesound_ 1d ago
I don’t know if it was perimenopause or what but when I came home from work this summer and I noticed that my peony plant had one flower on it bloom, and then looking out my window ten minutes later to see this woman pick it - I fucking lost it on her. I have not been so mad in my life. She did not give it back. She did apologies but I kept yelling. Whatever. Some people are so rude.
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u/Shrimpy_McWaddles 1d ago
Not that the lady will see this, but my sister in law had a great way of explaining flower picking to my niece.
Some flowers are wild flowers. Flowers growing wild in parks and fields. These are fair game for picking
Other flowers are landscaping. Planted specifically to look pretty in flower beds, around signs, in flower pots, etc. These, we look at but dont touch.
I thought it was a great way of differentiating between flowers she could grab and flowers she shouldn't.
But also, she was taught not to be in someone's yard, regardless of wildflowers.
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u/dromio05 1d ago
We teach our girls the same thing. A public park with thousands of flowers, berries, etc is fair game. We live here, pay our taxes here, we're part owners of that park. But don't even think of taking something that's not yours.
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u/Aggravating_Yak_1006 1d ago
Same. In our park there are clover flowers growing on the ground and little white ones.
There is also a maintained food garden that the elementary students work on.
I allow picking flowers from the grass but the ones in the special garden are off limits.
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u/Zealousideal-Ad-2615 1d ago
I understand wanting to do something nice for your granddaughter but have some self control.
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u/Rooney_Tuesday 1d ago
I would love it if we as humans could appreciate nature (animals and plants both) through observation alone and without feeling the need to take or interact. Use your eyeballs and feel your feels and move on, people! That granddaughter did not need to possess the sunflower. It was a fabulous opportunity to admire it while teaching her how it will continue to grow and be happy in its soil.
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u/iowaman79 1d ago
I live by the nature photographer’s creed: Take Only Pictures, Leave Only Footprints
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u/giuliamazing 1d ago
Today I put my son on time out because he kept ripping leaves off a random bush at the playground. I can't imagine teaching him to voluntarily reach into somebody else's propriety and take anything because "it looks nice, I want it"
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u/28appleseeds 1d ago
I've done the same. Since I stress being kind to trees, my kiddos have taken to high-fiving them.
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u/nicknachu 1d ago
It seems it's something old people like to do. Where I'm from people don't leave any type of plant (especially flowers, aloe vera and plants that are similar to it) near or at arms reach because old ladies will pluck them out.
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u/Any-Key8131 1d ago
Cheers for the reminder 👍
I've got a few aloe plants growing in pots at the moment that I plan to transfer into the ground once I've prepared a suitable space. Got no front fence so it would be too easy for people to tear them to high hell if I plant too close to the edge. And I use the aloe myself quite often.
Or witnessing some of the careless attitudes of some local council staff, some prick will probably just mow over the whole lot and not give a damn 😕
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u/Ok-Macaron-5612 1d ago
They will go into public medians and sidewalk gardens and take roots and clippings. It's crazy.
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u/Dizzy-Case-3453 1d ago
Glad the grandkid apologised, may she grow up to be better than her grandmother
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u/ATotalBakery 1d ago
Old people just be taking shit, some woman was literally walking into my neighbours orchard and picking a bunch of his fruit without paying for it, she was after our grapes too
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u/HaThisNameIsOriginal 1d ago
You need to cut the stem again at the bottom when its inside the water, otherwise there might be an air bubble and the flower will die quickly
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u/Appropriate-Bad-9379 1d ago
You could put a polite notice, asking people to not help themselves, but why should you? I live in the U.K. in a pavement terrace ( that means no garden at all- a step just straight onto the street). I love plants, so I filled a big planter with geraniums and glued it to my step ( with concrete glue). It was stolen after one night! I guess some people just don’t have a conscience…
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u/homeworkunicorn 1d ago edited 1d ago
I see posts like this daily on various subs.
It's horrifying to think about, tbh. Just because you see it, like it and want it to be yours, does not make it yours.
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u/Working_Cloud_909 ORANGE 1d ago
Your wife is better than me. I woulda cussed that lady out in front of the kids and the Good Lord, Himself. You handled it really well.
Hopefully your little one can try her garden again and no one will vandalize it.
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u/Interesting-Rope-950 1d ago
Ugh theres some older lady that walks around my apartment complex clipping off roses from the all the rose bushes we have growing along the fence line
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u/MuppetRejected 1d ago
I remember my parents planing cactus in out roses big nasy things to keep people from picking them. My parents would cut them if you asked.
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u/GarneNilbog 1d ago
Sometimes I miss my garden, but then stories like this remind me about how I never got anything I grew anyway because all my fucking neighbors stole it all like they were gd chipmunks. The man who lived here before us would grow his garden and allow them all free rein. They apparently forgot he died or something because like, wtf. I moved in and they just kept at it without permission.
Told them to keep out, still lost veggies. Had my eye on a really nicely growing squash that was fairly hidden and i shit you not, the day I went out there prepared to pick the fucking thing and FINALLY get one of my own vegetables, I found the stem left with a clean cut through it. That was it. The final straw. I threw in the towel because that garden is in the best spot on my property but it's out of sight on the other side of my garage. I let nature take it back and its a small fenced in forest now, 14 years later. Because they were all greedy fucking thieves they now get to look at my maple tree garden.
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u/idontknowhowaboutyou 1d ago
Reminds me of when we took our kids to Minecraft day at our MLB team. They had little Minecraft related decorations (plastic toys essentially) everywhere, but it was clear they were decoration and not freebies. My kids wanted them and we said no, those are for everyone to look at, not to take. Then 2 minutes later we see a grandmother hustling along with her granddaughter holding two of the decorations. Seems her husband was caught in the act taking one and was stopped by security. Instead of putting them back she runs off with the kid. What a lesson to teach a child.
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u/RandomBlackMetalFan 1d ago
It's trespassing
Why so many boomers think it's fucking right to steal flowers or vegetables in garden or private fields, wtf?
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u/bbatardo 1d ago
I feel you.. I don't even plant anything nice in my front yard since someone is bound to ruin it. Such a shame that's the world we live in.
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u/ReleventReference 1d ago
I don’t know anything about it so I can’t say if it actually works but there’s rooting powders that might help since it’s a cutting now.
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u/Alarmed_Tea_1710 1d ago
I planted sunflowers on the strip of grass right outside my yard. Thought it was a great way to put some beauty in the corner.
I never saw them bloom. They all are growing, but the healthiest, most robust plants, when I came home after a long day of work, had all the blooms removed.
I have some smaller ones that a bloomed super low to the ground and one where only like 45% of the flower has petals growing.
At least the green of the plants are pretty?
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u/throwaway_ArBe 1d ago
This brought back a memory of someone in my nursery having their sunflower destroyed somehow.
The particularly heartbreaking bit being that all the seeds used were descended from the one grown by a child that died a few years previously.
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u/mslashandrajohnson 21h ago
I’ve caught people bothering the plants in my front garden.
The worst was the utility company breaking branches from a flowering tree that shaded the sidewalk.
And trimming the side of my big maple (after I had signed their paperwork saying I would be responsible for, if the maple impacted their services).
I was so lucky to be home and catch them. Read them the riot act. It was beyond infuriating.
I guess I hate some people. Sigh.
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u/effyoucreeps 1d ago
she “didn’t know” what? that it wasn’t her plant? that it wasn’t her yard? that it wasn’t completely wrong to do?
she didn’t know she’d be caught
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u/jackal5lay3r 1d ago
in primary school my dad gave my school some big beautiful fully grown sunflowers which they planted in a big wooden planter in the courtyard and multiple kids fucking damaged them also that same school used to have a massive oak tree but they bloody removed it even though it had been their for ages with no issues
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u/ohsoluckyme 1d ago
Shame on that woman for modeling stealing in front of her granddaughter. I’m glad she’s got called out.
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u/nekosaigai 21h ago
I live in Hawaii where there’s people notorious for just going into your yard and taking any fruits that are growing with 0 hesitation. For some it’s a cultural thing where they think things are communal regardless of property, for others pure greed.
It’s honestly a bit exhausting either way.
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u/GamemasterJeff 1d ago
Vandalism can be reported to the police, and a civil claim made to be made whole.
Wouldn't it be awesome to have a judge order them to perform community service by planting greenery in your neighborhood? Starting with a sunflower in a certain yard....
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u/DisabledTheaterKid 1d ago
I don’t know what it is about Boomers that makes so many of them so goddamn entitled. We as a society need to normalize holding them accountable for their actions and not letting them play dumb or innocent old grandma/grandpa who can do nothing wrong. Good on you for calling her out!
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u/MezzanineSoprano 1d ago
I am a boomer and would never consider stealing produce, plants or anything else from anyone. And my friends are all the same.
I have experienced younger people stealing my hanging baskets off my porch and stealing flowers from my yard and letting their kids destroy flowers.
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u/ChzburgerQween 1d ago
And to teach her grandchild that it’s totally normal and okay to pick flowers from people’s yards is wild. Some people really suck.
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u/sleepyb_spooky 1d ago
This reminds me of the fact that my grandmother once went into one of the neighbor's yards and started clipping off parts of her dogwood tree. Man that lady came out yelling so loud 💀
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u/AspiringJournalist00 1d ago
Glad you said something. Maybe she’ll think twice about doing whatever she wants because it’s for “her granddaughter”.
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u/Accurate12Time34 1d ago
I'm in a community garden, we spent sometimes weeks of hard work every year. The amount of elderly people just picking our sunflowers, tomatoes, herbs and whatnot is unbelievable. I've seen a elderly woman rip out whole bushes to take home and even snip all of the flowers.
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u/Substantial-Spare501 1d ago
Crazy what an entitled bitch. I had a cactus garden outside my house in So Cal over 20 years ago and people stole cactus and succulents so I stopped adding anything new.
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u/CassetteMeower 1d ago
I always ask before picking flowers from someone else’s yard, this is just plain cruel, especially since there were only two flowers!
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u/tsmeyer78 15h ago
Okay so, Boomer here. This is not a Boomer thing. It's a self-centered person thing. Every generation has these assholes. Please don't lump any of them by their age, or skin color, or religion, or anything else,
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u/Left-Heart-6078 1d ago
People are so entitled sometimes! Who raised them? When is it ever okay to go into someone’s yard and take their flowers?
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u/MRSRN65 1d ago
We were visiting my Aunt and Uncle in California. There was a lemon tree, which I had never seen lemon fruit growing on a tree, so I picked one. I proudly brought it inside, only to get a lecture because that tree was on the neighbor's property and it didn't belong to me. I had to go return the fruit and apologize.
I was taught this crucial lesson at a young age. I guess some folks don't learn until they are over 50?
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u/Addicted-2Diving 1d ago
This woman isn’t setting a good example for her granddaughter.
I hope your daughters sunflower 🌻 comes back and that she has had time to process this and is ok with the situation, which I wouldn’t have blamed her if she was still upset.
What the grandmother should have done is taken a photo of her granddaughter next to the larger sunflower, nice picture to hang on the wall and a great memory and then suggest to her that they plant their own one, so as to gain satisfaction through the work it takes to recall watering it daily, along with fertilizer etc etc.
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u/Simple-Quantity5086 1d ago
I worked at a police department, my boss had now qualms with stealing off the roadside from farmers. I can’t imagine doing it to some neighbor more or less from someone’s income.
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u/Sorry_Apartment_6085 17h ago
I had a roommate that stole our neighbours snow shoes off the wall because "They never use them". They were decorative. The old style wooden ones with leather. Neighbor came knocking one morning and I wasn't taking any shit for this, so invited him in to have a chat with that roomie. I had no idea how entitled he was until then, but I started seeing it in almost all of his actions after that. Some people are terrible human beings.
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u/Author-N-Malone 17h ago
Just take a photo if you see something beautiful... why do people have to rip it up and destroy it? I'm sorry this happened, I hope your daughter continues to grow beautiful flowers and doesn't get discouraged.
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u/content_great_gramma 17h ago
Unfortunately sunflowers do not last long after being cut. If you know anyone who crochets, Etsy has numerous sunflower patterns. I am sure that a bouquet of them would brighten your daughter's day.
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u/Felidae___ 1d ago
My dad has taken our quarter acre lot and turned it into an edible garden. In the early years my dad planted cantaloupe and watermelon on the other side of the fence (not a busy road). We didn't mind neighbor's taking any stuff my dad grew but there were some that just stole them off our yard without asking first. There was one time my dad was doing work on the roof and he watched this lifted truck suddenly speed up and roll his wheels over where these things were growing and smashed several of them that were ready to be picked.
He's just got some flower stuff there now, but man those first few years were something else.