Grand Theft Auto

Not terribly original, but I used that title to encourage search engine traffic, so sue me.

Picture this: someone steals the spare set of keys to your Jeep Grand Cherokee out of your Dodge Neon. Would you get the Cherokee re-keyed? Most people would. But not me. Ohhhhhhh no. Cuz that's not the way I roll.

Flash forward three weeks: I have been lulled into complacency by the fact that the key thief (who also scavenged $1.32 in random change and my son's nasty-ass school backpack) is apparently a moron who doesn't realize he can come back and take a WHOLE CAR. Then one day, wake up, husband goes out the door to work, comes back in, and says, with less urgency than one might imagine, "Where's your car?"

I walk out the door and check of course, just in case he has somehow overlooked it, and sure enough, just a blank space where my car used to be. Who's the moron now?

Not so fast.

As it turns out, the car is recovered, oh, a week later, by a cop who, while very friendly, calls the neighborhood it was found in "the Ghetto." We live in a Mississippi River town of 30,000 or so in southern Illinois. Detroit it ain't. This made me laugh, on the inside of course.

Anyhoo, the car was in reasonable shape, but filthy, out of gas, and smelling like the inside of a strip club. Not that I would know.

He was generous enough to leave me some homemade rap CDs and a really lovely Crown Royal cap in place of the 500 pennies that were stashed in the cup holders, but the best thing he left behind? Er, his Illinois picture ID. Uh, yeah. NOW who's the moron, sucker!!!

Funny. Funny. Funny.

What's not so funny is that he left most of my crap in the car but for some reason tossed all of my CDs -- RHCP, Nirvana, Foo Fighters. Strangely, this pissed me off more than the actual car theft itself. Perhaps it's time to re-examine my priorities . . .