Transportation: gone

As usual, mornings include walking in some semi-awake state over to the bike shed. It is all pre-programmed. I put my right trouser leg in my right sock, not to get my trousers tangled up in the chain on my mountain bike. I take the keys from the outer pocket on my bag. I flip the keys around a bit to find the proper small silver key for the huge lock on my bike. Enter the shed, and find my bike. This morning was different though, because I (for once) actually remembered where I had put the bike. It was in the very left stand, just by the entrance. The other thing different was that the bike was not there where I had left it. It was actually not in the shed at all, after a closer look. And not anywhere to be found in any of the surrounding vegetation. It was stolen.

You'd expect to get rather upset when these things happen. Your means of daily transportation is stolen from you. But I didn't. Not at all. I just established it wasn't there, and accepted it. I borrowed a spare bike from my boyfriend, went home, called the police to report the theft. For statistics you know. And that was it. The lock was actually the most valuable. I had bought it a couple of years back when living in Scotland, for 30 pounds or so (like 45 euro, or 55 usd). The bike was one of those cheap ones you get as an extra gift while buying a TV or so. My grandmother got it when she had to buy a new TV, and she was kind enough to sell me the bike in exchange for me buying her a small table to put her TV on. The bike was by now really rusty, the chain was almost falling apart, the gears were getting on my nerves, and it was in a general bad condition. I hope they will have to work some hours on picking the lock, but that is probably naïve of me to think. With today's thieving methods and low morals, they can probably do it in less than a minute, no matter how expensive the lock was.

But after they have managed to get the lock open. I hope they will crash the rusty old bike into a tree, and die a slow painful death. And then they will realise to keep their filthy hands off what's not theirs to take.