The Long Road

11/03/2003 Archived Entry: "Fucking pilfering thieves: Part 3"

The fact that one little mistake can ruin your life fascinates me. Just think, you could lose hundreds or thousands of dollars, your life, your freedom, or a loved one just from making one bad spur of the moment decision, whether that’s deciding to have just one more drink, driving a little longer, going a little further, or whatever. Our lives in this society are so precariously balanced that just being in the wrong place at the wrong time can make everything tumble to pieces. Sometimes we do things without thinking about the repercussions and other times we just don’t think anything bad will happen and then it all comes back to bite us in the ass. It's like Murphy's law is always waiting around for you to slip up. My dad once said that you could do a shoulder check a million times and there won't be anyone there but the one time you don't check, it's guaranteed that you'll hit something.

Anyways, what the heck am I talking about? So Neeta’s driving me home.
Neeta: “Maybe we should put your bike in my house?”
Me: “I’ll just leave it there; I’m sure its safe locked against that ‘no parking’ sign”

Sure enough, the bike disappeared the next day. Between Stephen, Joe, and I, that’s 4 bikes we’ve gone through since moving here.

Update!So I went back to Neeta's place to look around and ask some questions, mainly for peace of mind since I wasn't expecting my bike to ever come up again. I asked the people whose lawn my bike was locked on and they said "oh, you're the guy!". Turns out they had dug up the sign, taken my bike and stashed it away in their garage cuz they didn't feel like it was safe where it was. Nice enough of them, but if I had decided that it was a lost cause and never bothered to look around I would have never seen my bike again!

Replies: 8 comments

Did you call the city, you never know, they might have taken it since it was attached to a "Fire Route" sign.

Posted by Mike @ 11/03/2003 12:40 AM EST

no not yet, sunday nights are a weird time to call local authority.

Posted by Rayne @ 11/03/2003 01:07 AM EST

You boys and your bikes...

Posted by Andrea @ 11/03/2003 02:22 AM EST

You have to catch these thieves...film them...make a documentary...:P!

Posted by dAN @ 11/03/2003 04:40 PM EST

On my walk to the midterm today I was imagining walking by some guy who was riding my bike and dropping my umbrella, running after him and dropping him by throwing my bag. Alas, nothing like that happened.

Posted by Rayne @ 11/03/2003 11:11 PM EST

Your "UPDATE" is strange...why would those people choose to dig up the sign...to move your bike...cuz it wasn't in a safe place!??!?!...you know where to start filming...

Posted by dAN @ 11/05/2003 07:18 AM EST

That was very...odd. But I'm glad you got your bike back!

Posted by Andrea @ 11/05/2003 01:34 PM EST

It was brought up that maybe they were planning on keeping the bike but were caught off guard when I showed up to ask about it so decided to return it. It's possible, but i'm more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm definately glad I got my bike back tho.

Posted by Rayne @ 11/05/2003 02:36 PM EST