“Odd” she thought “We just bought all the tires brand new two months ago. How could they have missed one?”

Removing all four plastic hub caps. She examined all the tires with a meticulous eye. And noticed that the rim of the bald tire, no longer matched the rims of the other three.  Almost as if someone had taken off their good tire in the night, and replaced it with something not entirely different. Something similarly foreign.

The light bulb clicked. “We’ve been robbed!”

And as they shared their story with me, I wondered who would steal a tire and have the decency to replace it with their old one. I mean, my friends could have been left high and dry. With the car up on blocks, one rim short. Greeting them pathetically like a three legged dog. But the thieve(s) didn’t. Instead replacing the good tire with the bad. And here is the kicker, they even cinched up the lug nuts!

So you gotta wonder, what is Bend turning into? Because this doesn’t appear to be a theft of desire. A robbery of want. No, this heist is founded and rooted in one simple thing.

Need.