She had always religiously locked her bike. She was so adamant about it that her habit was borderline annoying.
One night she stayed at my house and forgot to lock it up. The ONE time she didn’t lock it. I don’t know what happened, did she just forget, was it safer here than at her house? I don’t know, but in the middle of the night, she jumped out of bed.
“My Bike!”
“What?” I said, groggily,
“Quick, go check my bike!”
We jumped up and went outside and her bike was gone. I went inside to put on some clothes real quick and ran back out in my boxers and a t-shirt. I was half asleep, so I don’t know what I was thinking, like I could catch a bicycling thief on my feet. And he was already blocks away.
“Dammit!”
We sat down and recounted the events. What woke her up was the bell on her blue and white beach cruiser. She couldn’t miss that sound. That was probably them leaving the porch in a hurry and slamming the bike down on the ground to get on it and ride away, making the bell inadvertendly ring.
Nothing is more frustrating than something like this happening under your nose while you are sleeping literally feet away. The scenario of what I would do if I had enough time to catch the guy played out in my head several times, and it wasn’t pretty. The different angles I would approach as I flew through the air to knock him off the bike, the different things I would do once he was on the ground.
But none of that matters now, he’s gone. With one of my girlfriends most prized posessions, her beach cruiser, which she rode everywhere.
“I loved that bike.”
She said under her breath.
