Mean people suck

Well, statistically, it was inevitable, I suppose, but this realization didn't make it suck any less to discover, after a lovely dinner with my friends Meredyth and Greg at their Bloomingdale apartment, to find a still locked up Ollie one wheel lighter. I know that things could've been way worse, but I still can't help feeling violated.

I should know better. I do know better. And you can bet your bike lock I will not make that mistake again. Well, as soon as I get myself a new wheel -- it may be a few days before your friendly neighborhood food educator can get around the neighborhood again. (Thankfully this happened after yesterday's DC school garden bike tour -- more on that group riding adventure when I stop being pissed off about the neighborhood wheel stealer. Grrr. It may be a few days.)

Okay, I'll admit it is my own fault for not locking Ollie up as securely as usual. I'm usually so compulsive about that sort of thing. Certainly nobody would be so brazen as to steal a wheel off of a locked bike, I thought, not with folks sitting at outdoor tables at Boundary Stone right across the street. I couldn't get her up against the fenceline fully, and after reflecting on how I'd been to this neighborhood many times over the past few years with no incident, I figured locking Ollie's frame and back wheel to the fence would be enough. The thief could not have missed the "Please don't steal me" sign on Ollie's handlebars, so I wonder: was he illiterate or mean-spirited or both?

Is The Universe trying to tell me something? Perhaps I am too trusting. Maybe it's a concrete reminder that there are many unhappy, unloved people out there who take things of relatively little value to themselves but of critical importance (not to mention sentimental value) to one person -- oh, if they only knew the roads that wheel and I had traversed! -- and I need to protect myself and my loved ones (even the inanimate loved ones) more carefully. Or perhaps after 10,000 miles it's time for a new front wheel and I needed a bit of a cosmic push to shell out the money for one.

But seriously, who steals a wheel? Jerk. At least they got one with a slow-leaking tube....