“How would I know that?” Christine asked. “How could I know the emotional state of whoever did this? I don’t even know who did it.”

“Ma’am, what I’m saying,” the woman said impatiently, “is that you have no reason to believe that this vandalism was an act of hate directed against you because of your ethnic background, religious affiliation or sexual orientation.”

“Well,” replied Christine, “I’ve got a pretty good idea they didn’t care for my carpet.”

There was a pause as the woman took in this new information. “Carpet?” she asked. “I thought you said the vandalism was on the floor of your breakfast nook.”

“That’s right.”

“Ma’am, are you saying that you have carpet in your breakfast nook?”

Sure, thought Christine. Blame the victim. The carpet was asking to have ketchup spilled on it, right?

“Look,” said Christine. “I didn’t put in the carpet. It was there when I bought the place. I was going to replace it eventually….”

“You were going to replace the carpet?”

Damn it, thought Christine. “Eventually,” she said. “Are you going to send someone out?”

“Because someone walked into your unlocked condo…”

“It was locked,” Christine said.

“…squirted ketchup on your carpet, and made themselves a sandwich?”

“Nearly burning down my condo.”

“With your own defective appliance. Ma’am, you’re going to have to come down to the station and fill out a report.”

“A report, right,” sighed Christine. “I’ll get right on that.” She hung up.

What was the point of filling out a report? If the police couldn’t be bothered to even visit the scene of the crime, it seemed highly unlikely that they would put much effort into locating the vandals. Failing the perpetrators doing their part by also showing up at the police station to fill out a report, the odds of them being apprehended seemed small. Presumably the insurance company would require her to report the incident before reimbursing her, but she wondered if it was even worth it to file a claim. Her experience with making insurance claims was that the expense of the repair was generally about $1.46 more than her deductible – and that three months later her premium would go up by $38.00.

She made a call to a locksmith, who promised to be out within the next two hours, and then started to clean up her apartment. I say that she started to clean up because about five minutes into the project she realized that she rather liked the vandals’ creative use of the condo’s space, and decided to leave things more-or-less as they were. Whoever the vandals were, they possessed, in addition to a facility with locks, a rather sublime aesthetic sensibility. She imagined a gang of white supremacist interior decorators who, frustrated with their clients’ bourgeois tastes, had turned to a life of vandalism and illicit sandwich-making.