Angry Dads

So my sisters and I, along with my cousin, go dumpster diving.

It's not what you're thinking. Yes, it can be dirty, but it is actually quite beneficial.  We get a lot of perfectly edible produce, as well as merchandise that can be easily fixed. It's saved us tons of money on grocery shopping, and has allowed us to own some really cool items-such as feather pillows!

We've been doing this for about 5months now, and we'd gotten pretty good...or so we thought.

Let me set up the story for you:

My father does not know about our night excursions, because he is old fashioned and narrow minded, we knew he find the idea disgusting. Unfortunately, my father sometimes works at a gas station, and he tends to get chatty with his customers.  He recently did a shift at the station, and spoke with a police officer, who told my father about some girls who go dumpster diving around Fort Wayne. The police officer then proceeded to tell my father some very specific details that led my father to realize that the officer was talking about his own children. Such details estimated heights, which stores we'd been to, and, more importantly, the license plate number and the name it was registered to; my cousin's husband. We're also apparently on a watch list, and, hilariously, are the hot topic around the police station. 

I am confused. 

At one point, early in our dumpster diving history, we'd been caught in the act by a police officer, who told us that what we were doing was perfectly legal, he'd only come to check that we weren't doing drugs, or whatever. He then left us to finish doing our thing. After that, we'd always assumed we were in the right....so why are we on a watch list??  Also, if we were doing something illegal, why didn't the police, after learning the license plate number, call my cousin to talk to her about dumpster diving and how it's illegal??  I don't quite know what's happening on a legal standpoint, and I kind of want to call up a police officer and ask whether it's actually illegal or not.

But yeah, my father is pretty pissed.  We're all sort of tip-toeing around him, since he gets pretty bad when he's upset.  I don't really mind, since it will blow over at some point, it's just going to be a pretty annoying week, and he's definitely going to reference this in the future. Ugh. Yay for being a constant failure! :D