When you get a new car, especially if it's the first new car that you've had in a very long time, you try to protect the newness - the smell, the unmarred exterior, the pristine interior - for as long as possible. So when you're driving along in your new car, with a large container of something very sticky and pungent, it's not wise to let your attention drift, requiring a sudden stop when traffic in front of you brakes. This can result in the glass container of the Asian marinating sauce that was riding in the front seat to become airborne, and then, startlingly, continue to obey the laws of physics and crash against the spotless dashboard, soaking the immaculate carpet and depositing bits of sauce-laden glass throughout the front of the car, including all over your computer bag.

It is further unwise to stop in a questionable area of the city at a car wash, remove your computer case from the car, put it on the ground next to the car, and walk away from the car to locate the vacuum so that you can clean out the worst of the debris. It should not be terribly surprising that when you return to the car, the laptop bag will be gone and that one of the car wash employees will explain that "We were about to put it back in the car to run it through the wash when some guy came along and said the case was his and took it." It should, further, not be astonishing that the Philadelphia police would not find this alleged crime to be very interesting and would tell you that it was not theft, but rather a loss (obliquely commenting on your stupidity at allowing this chain of events to occur). Additionally, when you then comment to Philadelphia's finest that if you leave your car parked in front of your house and wake up to find it gone they would consider it a case of "Grand Loss Auto", that the police would not react with smiles and guffaws at your amazing wit.

One of the guys I work with told this story yesterday. He then went on to say to me, "I know you're going to take this the wrong way, but I'm going to tell you anyway and I mean it as a compliment." Never a good way to start a conversation. "I was watching Frasier the other night and Lilith was on it and I was trying to figure out who she reminded me of, and I realized it was you." I have just been compared to one of the coldest, most calculating and insensitive female characters on TV. "It's her precise way of talking that reminds me of you." Yeah, right.

I comfort myself with the thought that his lovely new car reeks of Mr. Yoshida's sauce and that he was merely suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome when he made those comments to me.