The crime doesn’t fit my puzzlement

It’s not that I’m a big fan of crime, but at least some of them are understandable to me. Robbing a bank, for instance, can be a lot more profitable than depositing your life savings in one and waiting for interest to accrue at 0 .0 0 3 percent.

But a crime of which I was the victim last week is unfathomable to me.

What happened was that our condo board notified us that some workers would be coming to seal our driveways with fresh blacktop, which meant all residents would be required to move their vehicles and park them elsewhere. So the night before the tar people were to arrive I pulled my car out of our garage and parked it on the street that adjoins our development.

It never entered my mind that my car would be at risk, because it’s 12 years old and we live in a relatively crimefree area. The only time we ever had to call the local police was to rescue some baby ducks that had fallen through a sewer grate. So I parked it on the street, confident that it still would be there the next morning. Which it was.

Except for the hood ornament. Where, the night before, there had been a silver ornament depicting a crouching jaguar, there now was a hole in the hood. This was not, admittedly, a major tragedy. So I didn’t bother to call the cops. A missing hood ornament is not nearly as tragic as baby ducks trapped in a storm sewer. Still, I can’t comprehend why anyone would steal it.

What’s the value of a 12-yearold hood ornament?

Will I be getting a phone call informing me that I need to bring a suitcase filled with small, unmarked bills to a desolate location if I ever want to see my hood ornament alive again? Or will I be driving down the street one day and see my jaguar attached to the hood of a minivan?

It’s possible that whoever took it figured it would be a valuable collectors’ item someday. Car makers aren’t supposed to put hood ornaments on cars anymore, because a pedestrian struck by the front end of a speeding car might be seriously injured by being snagged on the hood ornament. (Which is something else I don’t understand; if you get hit by the front end of a speeding car, getting snagged on the hood ornament would seem to be the least of your worries.)

Whoever took the hood ornament, I can only hope they’ll put it to good use and that it won’t just wind up in someone’s trash, the victim of vandalism.

That would make it the least understandable crime of all.