American-style justice -- Convicted peanut-brittle thief Tony Wilton grins and bears it
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG, VA, USA – Authorities arrested a pair of Italian tourists Friday following the theft of a large tin of candy from a Colonial Williamsburg peanut shop.
Employees of the Williamsburg Candy Shop realized the 25-pound can of confections was missing just minutes after two customers bought a large amount — $66 worth — of peanut brittle, then promptly ate the entire purchase.
Peanut brittle, made from sugar and Virginia-grown goobers, is a favourite treat among peanut-deprived European visitors, according to workers at the Williamsburg Peanut Shop
Tony Wilton and Carla Colognori, residents of Barga, Italy, were found in the small Bruton Parish Church graveyard, trying to hide the empty tin behind George Washington’s headstone.
“They had sticky fingers and a strong smell of salt and sugar on their breath when the arresting officer questioned them – police spokesman Bubba Coppe”
Following Bush Administration procedures for dispensing justice to foreign criminals, Wilton and Colognori were declared more-or-less guilty without a trial and placed in the Colonial Williamsburg stocks, where they were ridiculed by schoolchildren on a class trip to the Governor’s Mansion.
Casing the joint -- Italian tourist Carla Colognori was all smiles before the alleged theft of 25 pounds of peanut brittle.
Wilton received further punishment: He was forced to drink a 32-ounce Starbucks coffee with hazelnut and tangerine flavouring and declare repeatedly, “Yum, this is so much better than Italian coffee!”
In an exclusive interview with this reporter, Wilton and Colognori blamed their plight on American economic imperialism.
“We were introduced to peanut brittle several years ago by a pair of Americans visiting Italy. It seemed like harmless fun at first, but soon enough — and I’m not proud of this — we needed more and more peanut brittle to satisfy our cravings.” – Tony Wilton
The peanut-brittle addiction led to increasingly paranoid behaviour as time passed, according to Colognori.
“Tony suspected the cleaning lady of stealing from our stash,” she said. “But I think it was Tony himself making midnight raids.”
American-style justice -- Convicted peanut-brittle thieves Tony Wilton and Carla Colognori were lucky it's not mosquito season
Once in the Peanut Shop, the couple lost all self-control, they said.
“Now we see why American tourists drink so much wine at Aristo’s,” Wilton said. “It’s so plentiful, so available, it’s hard to maintain self-control.”
Despite further questioning, it was impossible to determine just who or what Wilton meant by “Aristo’s.”
“It may be some sort of Euro-peanut-brittle junkie slang,” Copper said.
Wilton and Colognori were freed after agreeing to send a wheel of pecorino cheese to everyone in America.
I have to say, I have wondered just a little about those two. We stayed in their rental apartment once in Barga, and the apartment had wonderful potted plants just outside the front door, on the window sills and out on the balcony. But I did find it strange that all of these plants were potted in empty peanut brittle tins. And sometimes we would see Tony on his way out to his Italian lessons and he would always be pulling something out of his coat pockets and nibbling on it.
And every time we bumped into Carla, she asked us again and again what part of the US we were from, and each time she looked disappointed when I told her the North East, did I hear her once say under her breath, “Damn it, why couldn’t they be from Virginia!?”
A follow-up report from Virginia:
The couple’s release terms included some community service. They visited a middle-school classroom, where they spoke of the virtues of hard work, honesty and coming to class with sharpened pencils. There was some confusion at first. For the first several minutes, the students thought the visitors from Italy were speaking Italian; they were surprised to learn otherwise. Soon enough, a student settled the situation by asking the couple to indeed speak in Italian. While still difficult to follow, the students found the foreign language easier to comprehend than Wilton and Colignori’s British-inflected English.
The couple left the state having paid their debt to society. They also consider themselves rehabilitated.
“I’m sure we can consume peanut brittle socially without letting it get out of hand,” Wilton said. “I can stop eating peanut brittle whenever I want.”
I wonder when I became Canadian? Maybe I dodged the draft without even knowing it, eh?
Dang! I knew I was mussin sumpin. Whur’s my peanut bruttle? Kerryleebell