A woman in Ireland who got caught shoplifting blamed the theft on a bad breakup — which, she claimed, had suddenly left her in dire financial straits and in debt to other people. (Judging by what she clipped, she owed someone a pair of $170 flip-flops.)

I’ve had some bad breakups, which have left me crying on my kitchen tiles or quicksanding into my couch for a My So-Called Life-athon while working my way through a metric ton of Chubby Hubby. So I’m impressed. I mean hey, this lass managed to at least leave the house.

And really — though she did have a string of prior convictions — maybe her actions are not, at least at their core, so out-there after all. This article notes, and it’s by no means the first, that “when unmarried couples who have been living together part company, women are substantially worse off economically than men, according to a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family.”

But if she’d lived in China, apparently, it’s possible that she could at least have asked her flip-flopping boyfriend for “a ‘parting fee,’ or fenshou fei, upon the termination of a long-term relationship, or ’emotional compensation,’ ganqing peichang,'” according to this recent report on Forbes.com. “These ‘parting fees’ are not a legal matter, given the casual nature of dating. Call it an informal economic system for affairs of the heart — with all the attendant moral questions that arise when love and money mix.” Indeed! Interesting piece; check it out. And if you’re gonna steal anything, make it someone’s heart. (Awww!)