In a tale that demonstrates how the internet never forgets and has a rather sharp sense of humor, a Connecticut man named Dave Szepatowski has become an unlikely citrus celebrity after a decades-old lemon theft story from his youth resurfaced online, sweetened with nostalgia and seasoned with a generous squeeze of irony.
Back in 1976, which for context was the year ‘Rocky’ debuted and people thought bell-bottoms were a good idea, Szepatowski, then 17, broke into a commercial greenhouse and walked off with a lemon tree. Not a lemon. Not a branch. A whole lemon tree. Bold choice. He was, of course, caught and given probation for what was perhaps the most horticulturally motivated crime Waterford had ever seen.
Nearly fifty years later, that crime has reentered public consciousness, not because lemons have suddenly become a hot commodity on the black market, but because someone stumbled upon the tale in old archives and posted it to Reddit, where humor about obscure misdemeanors goes to flourish. As usual, the comment section did not disappoint. Jokes about lemon laws and fruit-related felonies sprouted like weeds, proving that the internet has both long memory and short attention span.
Szepatowski, now a respectable sports writer and radio producer, has taken the renewed attention in stride. “If I knew it would make this kind of deal, I would have stolen something bigger,” he quipped in an interview, likely with the kind of weary charm possessed only by someone whose youthful indiscretions now live forever online as meme material.
“It’s a lemon tree, for God’s sake,” he added, capturing the universal sentiment of anyone who finds themselves trending for a teenage lapse in judgment involving citrus theft.
In a time when the world runs on outrage and algorithms, perhaps it is comforting to know that even the humble lemon can still cause a stir. Or at least a really good Reddit thread.
Turns out when life gives the internet lemons, it gives us something to laugh about.