It was a dark and windy night. A typical Florida December. The offshore breezes stirr the palmetos and my imaginings. It was the Friday after Christmas. The call came at 8 pm, When I heard Drew's voice, my heart lit up -- it always does. He was checking in after driving to Naples to do a weekend Art Festival and was staying at his older sister Heather's house. She and her daughter, Rachel would be away for the entire weekend: Daughter over to her father's, and Mom on a much-needed out of town holiday with her new beau, the Hang Gliding Instructor.

Drew had the house to himself.

"The drive went well. Bandit drove like a champ," he said.

Bandit is our 78 Ford Econoline, patched with duct tape, aluminum foil and chewing gum. We rescued it from a life of delivering office chairs eleven years ago with $750.00 cash. Not a glorious task for a once-upon-a-time customized black and skyblue airbrushed Bee Gee dream machine. Every movable part of that van has been replaced, thus revealing the very soul of an Art Warrior. Bandit would rather die than let us down. We've yet to have been stranded by a breakdown or even seriously inconvenienced. And God forbid anyone breaking into Bandit to steal its priceless inventory of fine art . Even with its fairly recent, crusty Econobake white paint job, Bandit simply looks like hell.