Why should anyone steal a watch when he could steal a bicycle? ~Flann O’Brien
I’ve had a few bikes stolen from me. In fact, I’ve probably had more bikes stolen than I can remember. But, I do recall the first and the most recent.
The first stolen bike was when I was a child, and it was a crushing blow. The bike was the hand-me-down with the banana seat that I coveted for oh so long. I had it for a day before it disappeared from the porch.
My previous bike was a heavy old maroon clunker. The tire on that one blew when I was pumping it up at the gas station down the hill. It traumatized my sister Sarah. I think she still hates blowing up tires. But, if you’ve ever had a bike tire blow in your little-girl face, you’d know that it’s loud, but ultimately not that upsetting. Well, I did cry. But that was mostly because my bike tire blew and that meant I couldn’t ride that day.
The upside was that the demise of the maroon clunker, which was really an ancient rattle trap, meant that a new bike joined our family and I got the banana seat bike. And then it got stolen. Cruel fate!
We got the banana bike back. My mother, ever the super sleuth, tracked it down. I thought she was terribly clever to have recovered it. Really, she just looked on the porch of the neighborhood thugs down the street, and there it was. They’d blown the seat cushion up with a firecracker. So, when I got the coveted banana bike, the best part of it, the sleek comfy seat, was ripped and scratchy. Oh, and the ribbons on the handles were torn off so there were just little plastic nubs at the ends of the sparkly chopper-style handlebars. Bastards!
The last bike I had stolen was taken last year from the barn where I used to park my car when I had one. The bike in question was a pass-along that I took from my old roommate when we moved out of a place. There were three of us in my last apartment and we left our bikes outside. Naturally, after three years, they were pretty damaged from the snow and rain and whatnot. (And by whatnot, I mean the neighbor’s dog’s pee.) My roommate decided he wasn’t carting his rusty junker to his next place to leave out to rust some more. So, I took it. It was a nice bike. And I set it up on my bike rack in my barn. No lock. I know. I was tempting fate.
I didn’t much care because I had a nice bike of my own. And I’d even tried several times to give the bike to people I knew who would have benefited from it. However, the truth was that I used that bike a lot. My bike was locked on the porch with a u-bolt lock with a lost key. (By the way, my pal came over before Christmas and cut my bike free with a grinder. It was sparks o’plenty. Very cool.) So, I used the unlocked bike to go here and there. It was my easy access bike. And then one day it was gone. I felt a little betrayed. I’d trusted you neighbors! (I’m shaking my fist.)
After the bike got stolen, I looked for it with the accusatory menace of Pee Wee Herman in his Big Adventure. Everyone on any bike was suspect. “Hey, speed up,” I’d tell whoever happened to be driving me around. “That looks like my bike.” And then I’d get close enough to realize it wasn’t. Once, on a bike chase, I was with my mom and she asked me what color the bike was. “Um, green or purple,” I answered. She stopped following the bike and any other thereafter. The super sleuth gene might skip a generation.
Here’s the thing I decided about this bike theft. If someone who really needed a bike came and asked me for mine, I’d give it to them. So, I just pretended that was what happened. I then felt so very philanthropic. I said (in my head) “you can have this bike. Enjoy.” And then it was over. No more searching. No more betrayal. No more shifty looks at my old neighbors. Years from now I’ll be saying, “remember that purple bike I used to have? I gave it to some kid who needed wheels.” My family will roll their eyes and someone will say, “it was green, and it got stolen.” But I won’t hear because of the damage done to my eardrums when that tire popped.
