So, I pilfered some peppers! I stole some squash and took tomatoes, looted leeks and robbed some rutabagas, hid eggplant in a pocket, burrowed broccoli and mushrooms under a coppola cap.
I tossed zucchini aloft like juggling clubs while singing rhymes, all to garner toothless, laughing wonder from the children. Then, in the din and distraction of the applause, I slipped the long green into my backpack, unseen.
Local handmade beeswax cinnamon candle? Stashed in a canvas hip satchel! The same for a bar of licorice soap and a vial of rose oil, all mine now.
Later, at an intimate dinner party, by flickering, cinnamon-scented candlelight, my guests gobble gazpacho with gusto and go rapaciously at the ratatouille.
They honor my generosity and style; they celebrate my culinary prowess. The vegetables feed their bodies vitamins, minerals, taste and love, and they remain ignorant of the crimes that birthed their feast.
Hurray for stolen vegetables!
They herald their host and fete me with gifts of fine wine and chocolate, which I drink and nibble later, alone, taking great pride in my skills of theft and hospitality, certain now of my place in a heaven I do not believe exists, amongst the gods whose presence I deny, who thus cannot judge my vegetable thievery or the selfless sharing of my harvest.