Old man
Harris had the juiciest watermelons in town. Every summer, his fields turned
into a green and red wonderland of sweet fruit—and every summer, without fail,
local kids would sneak into the fields for a free midnight snack.
At first,
he let it slide. “They’re just kids,” he’d mumble, waving it off. But this
year, they got bold. Whole melons vanished overnight. Bite marks, rinds, and
muddy footprints littered the field like confetti after a party.
So,
Harris decided it was time to get clever.
He didn’t
want to build a fence or call parents. That wasn’t his style. Instead, he
hammered a wooden sign right at the edge of the field. In big, red letters it
read:
⚠️ WARNING: ONE OF THESE WATERMELONS CONTAINS
CYANIDE.
He
chuckled to himself. “Let’s see them take that risk,” he muttered,
walking away with a proud farmer’s swagger.
Sure
enough, days passed. No missing melons. No scattered rinds. No giggling at
dusk. His field remained untouched.
Triumphant,
Harris returned a week later, tipping his straw hat and admiring his untouched
crop.
But then,
he noticed something new scrawled under his warning in a mess of teenage
handwriting:
“NOW
THERE ARE TWO.”
He stared
at the sign, stunned. A beat passed. Then he burst out laughing.
The kids
had played him at his own game.
______
Sometimes,
wit beats warnings. And in the battle of brains between generations, it turns
out nobody really wants a watermelon that badly when cyanide is even
remotely on the table.
But it
also shows something else—respect. The kids had gotten the message...
and responded with a touch of cleverness, not malice. No one got hurt. No more
watermelons were stolen. And the sign? It stayed up the whole summer as a
silent truce between Old Man Harris and the local mischief-makers.
Because
sometimes, a good joke is better than a good lock.
______
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