How to get something out of no thing

As promised, lemonade, it's on the house.

You would think I’d know better, but you’d be wrong.

You would think I’d know better because I read about shattered car windows and stolen laptops every week, right here on Altadena Patch. In fact, I posted some of those reports to this very site just last month.

A few days ago, I left a laptop in the backseat of my car and in the morning there was no back window and no laptop. Which was only briefly shocking. In retrospect, it was an entirely logical outcome.

The thieves knew precisely what they wanted – the evidence weighs against impulse shopping and recreational vandalism. Only one window was shattered, the window closest to the laptop, leaving the rest of the car intact. Call it Stockholm syndrome, but I’m actually grateful for that.

They didn't take the other items in the car – a really nice scarf, a sweater, and a whole case of decent wine. They (or he or she, I don’t know if more than one is involved) didn’t rifle through the glove box or the console or the hatchback area. Nope, they knew what they wanted, and I was just the one to give it to them.

I like to picture their faces, though, when they realized what it was they actually got: Dude, it’s a Dell. A really old Dell. A really old, huge, ugly Dell. (More on Patch)