It must have sounded like a good plan at the time: Steal a relative's coffee maker until she paid up on the housesitting gig.

Alas, the victim must not have been as java-addicted as her housesitter believed. Either that, or she learned the joys of the Good Stuff, brewed at a nearby coffee house and said to hell with Mr. Coffee and those soggy, messy filters.

In any case, the kidnapper will have her day in court, although the ransom note seems to speak for itself: "You can have your coffee pot back as soon as I recieve the cash."

My mom said I was always too fussy to nap as a toddler. Fussy as in "I'm a brat and you can't make me sleep if I don't want to." I've never been a napper since. Never wanted to be a napper. Until now.

I've decided there is something to napping. The way there is something to eating when you're hungry instead of waiting until meal "time".

I can't always pull it off. Actually I usually can't pull it off. I am terribly envious of people who can kick back, close their eyes and drop off anywhere they happen to be.

But I did nap on my Canadian vacation last week. I think it's the air up there. My brother-in-law swears it contains ether. Whatever it is every afternoon around 3 or 4 my eyes started to close. I think I drooled on the rental car seat. Every night I fell into bed at 9.

Of course I'm tired at my desk right now, in the ether-less air of Lincoln.

I hadn't key-carded myself into the back door of the Journal Star this morning before our interactivity editor greeted me with this: "People are really mad at you Cindy."

Mad? At me?

The Michael Jackson column, she said.

Huh?

They're threatening to cancel their subscriptions, she said.

Apparently, a few early morning readers (one should never trust a person who comments on anything before 6 a.m.) thought today's column didn't show proper respect for the mega pop star.

And they went on to say "other rude things about you," she said. She was kind enough not to post their rants on the Web site.

And I am not curious enough to want to know just how rude they might have been.

It sure is nice to be back and work. So missed and loved.

You leave the office for three weeks and come home to find out nothing has really changed. Bus drivers are still inappropriately touching passengers, super stars (and semi-super stars) are still dying and some dimwit is continuing to randomly toss Molotov cocktails around the county.

So nice to be back.

You might spot a few dozen folks riding bizarre-looking bikes around town this evening.

These odd contraptions will be on their way to an art show. Where they are the art.

The zombie bikes are back. Tonight, Against the Wall Gallery, 6220 Havelock Ave., will unveil a bevy of bikes brought back from the dead. Bikes pulled apart and reconfigured. Twisted, hacked, zombified by mad local artists.

“Dead Center Eccentricity: Return of the Zombies” will hold its opening reception from 7 to 10 p.m. today. Beforehand, around 6 p.m., the artists/riders will pedal their abominations of nature from Recycled Bike Shop. 2756 South St.

Should be a cool, weird site. But if you don't get to see the bikes in action, swing by Against the Wall. The bikes will be displayed there through June.