Hot Melons

"Peter, I'm holding melons!"

I was taking the trash out last night, when I ran into one of our neighbours, another gaijin from Lyani's school. He mentioned that he had just bought a delicious melon, and I asked him where he had gotten it. And then the conversation got a little odd. Allow me to reproduce it:

Me: "Yeah? So where did you buy the melon?"
Him: "Haven't you ever seen those guys selling melons out of the back of a truck near the station?"
Me: "No, not really."
Him: "Well, anyway, there are some guys who sell melons out of the back of a truck near the station."
Me: "So you bought a melon from such a truck?"
Him: "Yeah, and it was pretty tasty, too."
Me: "Huh. Maybe I'll have to keep my eye open for melon peddlars hereabouts."

And I figured that would be the end of the conversation, but he continued:

Him: "So I asked this guy if he was a farmer or something, trying to cut out the middleman."
Me: "Oh, like a farmer's market sort of thing?"
Him: "Yeah. But it turned out that the melons were illegal."
Me: "Oh, do they have strict food safety laws or something, and this guy was avoiding them?"
Him: "Well, that's what I thought. So I asked him if he was a farmer..."
Me: "Yeah?"
Him: "And he looked at me, and said, 'No, I stole these in the middle of the night!'"
Me: "Holy shit! He actually told you that?"
Him: "Yeah! So those are hot melons!"
Me: "Heh."
Him: "And then he told me that it was dangerous, stealing melons, so I should not try it."
Me: "This was all in Japanese?"
Him: "Yeah. Pretty crazy, huh?"
Me: "Well, in this neighbourhood, nothing really surprises me anymore."
Him: "Like I would know how to go about stealing melons anyway!"

The truth is stranger than fiction, folks.