Should I be worried?

She was staring absentmindedly out of the car window as we drove the wet roads to Hout Bay. Raindrops left perforated trails against her window and she watched them for a while, tracing her finger along their interrupted pathways.

"Mom," she said at last, " have you and Dad ever robbed a bank?"

Choke. What? Stall.

"Er, no, Honey. Robbing banks is bad. We would never do something like that."

Silence.

"No, but like stealing," she offered. "Have you guys ever stolen something?"

"That wouldn't be right," I said. "So: no. We don't do what isn't right."

Then the thought struck me:

"How about you?" I asked. "Have you even stolen anything?"

She looked up from the watery design on her window and rolled her eyes. "How could I?" she sounded almost exasperated. "I have a family who won't even let me go into the front garden on my own!"

So now I asked myself: was that frustration at not being able to go into our unwalled front garden on the main road in our suburb, or was it regret at not having had a chance to burgle?

The mind boggles. Really it does.