'Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal -

Tout ça m’est bien égal.'

So, my car got broken into last night. Now, when I say 'broken into,' I'm not being entirely accurate: I don't lock this car, on the basis that the window that would be broken in a break-in would be worth more than the rest of the car. Moreover, I don't need to lock it since I store my gold bricks and rubies elsewhere than in the mighty Mazda. And the stockpile of untraceable semi-automatic weapons? The hundred-pound cache of smuggled drugs? Elsewhere, too. There is not much in there to steal, most particularly since we're not in Oregon, where the stack of empty Diet Coke bottles might net up to seventy-five cents at the recycling station.

That fact notwithstanding.

They did steal a little cheap clip-on light from the visor, a hair clip on the same visor, a car cellphone charger that probably works when used in a car with a working cigarette lighter, one pair of pointy, high, terrifyingly green pumps in a size suitable only for me (in a fiercely festive mood) or an eight-year-old Miss Cutie Princess pageant contestant in Little Rock, and maybe about $1.75 in change. I imagine they were shocked and angry at their lousy prize package, because they also stole one-half of a few pairs of shoes, including a charming but too-tight-even-for-me set of size 4 1/2 loden-green wedges. Since I can only guess they have as much use for single shoes as the original owner, I have to assume the intent was solely to wreck someone's day.

What is goofy about this (in addition to the idea of any chucklehead thinking my dodgy, unlocked hatchback a good choice for plundering) is that just last night I thought to myself how long it had been since my car had got 'broken into' last, and I also thought about thinking about moving some of the shoes back into the house into their little shoe homes. But my arms were full of Diet Coke and dim sum at the time, so I decided to do the thinking later.

What is also goofy about this is that there were some perfectly good single-serving maple syrups and hot sauces in the glove box they showed no interest in. Not to mention the almost-entirely-full box of Red Vines, black licorice style.