$400 Melon Snatched, Held for Ransom!!!

Hamptons Terrorized!!

Police guard melons at Hamptons gourmet grocery store.

One day after the New York Times spotlighted a Southampton grocery store that sold imported Japanese musk melons for $400 apiece, a gang of violent desperadoes brazenly stole one from the kitchen of a wealthy customer and left a ransom note demanding $300 “or we eat your melon.”

Southhampton Police Chief C. Wembley Dodge said he feared the daring daylight robbery-kidnap was just the beginning of a crime wave aimed at the delicacies of the affluent.

“We’ve put on extra officers at all the food markets,” he said. “And our SWAT team is guarding the $100 lobster salad, but these are a new breed of vicious criminals we never used to get out here, because they just don’t fit in.”

The missing melon was taken from the stupendously expensive refrigerator of Agnan Machoggian, a top Internet influencer and master podcaster, who lives with his wife and two children in a 148-room mansion in Southampton, that also converts into a yacht and can be sailed away.

“My kids are heartbroken,” Machoggian told reporters at a press conference. “They’d been looking forward to eating the melon with keen anticipation. It is more to them than just some flavorsome gourd. It is a symbol of our superiority. I’m asking anyone who sees these criminals to shoot them and rescue the melon. You will be amply rewarded. A small but delectable piece of melon will be set aside for you to do with as you wish.”

Machoggian said he had delivered the $300 in large bills to the designated location and left it as instructed, but “I fear the worst for my poor melon.”

Police set up a special phone line for people with any information to call, but said the number was unlisted.