Stop... Thief?

The other day I glanced out the window to see a car stopped at the end of my driveway. I thought nothing of it and assumed the driver was visiting one of my neighbors, as their guests frequently park in that spot. But after a second I notice the driver had gotten out and was looking at something at the end of my driveway. Since it was the same kind of car my landscaper normally drives I thought it was him, checking to see if the thorn bushes his guys were supposed to take out had died. (In case he is reading this, they aren't because your guys just cut them and did not pull out the roots. Feel free to come back and finish the job.) But a second look from where I was sitting revealed that it wasn't him - it was some guy I didn't even know. Immediately, my Spidey sense began tingling in that way it always does when there are strange people hanging out near me. Then, things got even stranger. The man went back to his car, grabbed a plastic bag and returned to where he had been standing. I saw him pick at the ground with his hands, pausing only to glance up at the house every now and again in a way which immediately made me suspicious of his motives. I was about to go down and ask him what he was up to but before I got to the door he toss the now-half-full bag into his car and drove away.

Curiosity peaked, I started heading down the driveway to see what he was so interested in with my mind racing the entire time. At first I tried to talk myself into the fact that he was a concerned citizen. Those thorn bushes can get rather long and close to the sidewalk and maybe he was concerned someone would snag themselves walking by. (By this point I was convinced I had seen him before.) Or maybe he had been walking his dog and the dog had gone the bathroom and he hadn't had a bag with him and he felt bad about it so he returned later to clean it up. But before too long my mind started to turn to more devious thoughts, as I started to wonder if he was taking something, even if I couldn't imagine what could possibly be there that was worth stealing. As I got to the bottom of my driveway I started looking in the area and discovered what he had actually been doing in the yard - collecting mushrooms. After having a tree cut down in that corner of the yard last summer a group of mushrooms had started to grow on the remaining stump. Since there is no lawn on that section of yard I had literally paid no attention to it since that time. But this guy had collected all the mushrooms from the stump and the surrounding dirt.

I have to admit, I had not seen that one coming. I don't like to eat mushrooms of any kind so I have a very limited knowledge about them. In fact, here's pretty much all I know about the fungus - they are very helpful in Super Mario Brothers and you really shouldn't eat random ones you find in the woods. Again, at first I tried to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he knows a lot about mushrooms and knows these particular kind are really bad for people to eat and he was afraid some neighborhood dog was going to wander over and give them a try. I don't know what the law is regarding someone's pet eating harmful crops you never planted growing near the street, but it wouldn't surprise me to know you could get sued for that sort of thing, so there was the possibility this guy just did me a favor. The problem is that people rarely do total stranger a favor without letting them know how much a favor they just did. Plus, the fact that he didn't knock on the door and ask me if he could have them screams of doing something shady. I know some mushrooms are expensive (especially the psychedelic ones) and how do I know that wasn't growing in the corner of the yard without me knowing about it? It's not like I would have sold them myself, it is just the principle of the thing.

If nothing else, this confirmed my suspicion I had seen the man before because he had to have previously seen the mushrooms and decided to come back for them. I simply can't imagine this guy was driving around randomly looking for mushrooms in people's yards and decided my street was worth a look. So I'm left wondering if this guy was being a Good Samaritan or did something I didn't know I had which was valuable just get stolen from me? The whole experience has left me with a strange feeling, like when you sell someone a used item from your house and they are way too eager to agree to your price - you can't help but wonder if you just sold an item of great value for practically nothing or the buyer doesn't know how to haggle. What I'm going to do now is wait until spring when they grow back and see if the man returns. If he come around again I'm certainly going to say something this time, because not knowing what he was up to is driving me crazy. And unless he claims he is a plumber who needs the mushroom to help save a princess than he better be ready to pay up.