There are times when you don't realize how important something is. Then your little dreamy trance gets shattered by harsh reality.

Sometime between midnight and 3 a.m. yesterday morning, my car was broken into. The guy, gal, or whatever (we'll call "him" "Scumbag", even though it could¹ve very easily been a woman that did this) could've just taken a slim-jim or an old coat hanger and popped the lock open fairly easily. But Scumbag apparently wasn't in the mood to be creative, so now my car is missing one of its windows.

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Why anybody in my small little cul-de-sac didn't hear this, I don't know, but he managed to bust out a window, reach in and take a few things.

Usually when thieves break into a car, they are there to take a stereo or some CDs, as they can usually sell those things for a good chunk of profit. The odd thing was, both of those items were still there. Granted, there's no way in hell anybody's getting that stereo out without taking the dashboard with it, but it wasn't even messed with.

So Scumbag took my backpack and my wife's purse.

Usually, neither one of those items would ever be in my car, but I didn't get home until midnight the night before. I didn't feel like taking out my overloaded backpack, as it had some pretty heavy things in it: three class books, my notebook, a pile of copied articles and a couple library books.

Oh, and my spendy little laptop computer was in there too.

So after my initial panic, I called the police and told them what was going on. Then I did the usual drill: canceled all the credit cards, put a hold on all the checks and ATM cards, etcŠ.

The wallet thing wasn't that big of a deal, as I didn't have any money in it, but I did, however, have a pile of notes that I'd spent several weeks compiling and a lot of information I needed on that laptop. You don't realize how important data ‹ whether stored on a computer or on paper ‹ really is, until you have a paper due in a week that you've spent quite some time doing.

So after freaking out all day long, wondering if my wife and I would get our stuff back, I got a phone call from the folks down at the Eugene Police Department. They told me they found items matching the contents of my bag that I described to them earlier and that they were going to have them brought down to the station. They found them in a front yard of a house no more than a block or two from mine. Luckily there was a nice enough lady out there to call the police when she found our stuff on her lawn.

Scumbag didn't leave the backpack, the laptop ‹ just my books that were in my bag, my notebook, my wife's purse (with only the $50 she had in it taken out) and my wallet. Everything was still in fine shape, but the heartless bastard still had my laptop.

The way I look at it, this guy had to know me and know that that computer meant a lot to me. He had to know that I owned it, for that matter. I very rarely took the thing out of my bag. Just by the way this guy just dumped everything else (and I mean everything) in someone's front yard says to me that this guy knows the value of a good computer and knows where to hit me where it hurts.

Whoever busted into my car went in there with that purpose alone. He could've had the CDs I had in there or the gift certificates that I received as wedding gifts. And the only damage he did to my credit card was the $7.57 he spent at the gas station at 3:00 a.m. before he left town and vanished into the night. My wife got all of her stuff back, and I got the oh-so-critical homework and notes back. But I'm still out a laptop.

But even if this bozo tries to turn the thing on, he's not going to be able to get into it. Unless Scumbag really knows what he's doing, he's not going to get past the password that is stored in the computer's hardware. The computer won't function unless he does, so I'm sure he'll get frustrated with it and give up.

I dare you to try it buddy. I don't take too kindly to folks that do mean things to innocent people. And when you mess with someone's computer, you're messing with every computer-nerd out there who loves his or her computer. I can tell you one thing, my friend: This is a group you don't want to mess with.