The Bicycle Thief

If you are lucky enough to be in possession of my brain - and I don't mean in a 'jar beside the bed' sense, so don't get any ideas - you may have the unique experience of losing and regaining your faith in humanity on a rapidfire basis. Let me explain.

Nothing makes me more upset than theft. When you leave something somewhere with a reasonable degree of security, I think you have a right to expect it to be there when you get back.

Imagine my disappointment, therefore, on Tuesday afternoon. On getting to Yarraville Station after work, I went to unlock my bike, only to find that it had vanished. This unexpected event allowed me to tap the deep, dark reservoir of cynicism that I generally try to keep a lid on in order to function relatively normally. Some of the questions I asked (silently) of the world were:

- why are people so dishonest? I'm not dishonest, so why is everyone else?
- why did the bike lock company make such a shitty lock? Is it just something that looks tough but is designed to crumble in a real conflict situation, like Mr. T?
- is the bike lock company more or less culpable than the thief himself?
- why did the thief spend so much time sawing a huge lock off a crappy bike? Does he hate me personally?
- does he in fact know me?
- and what's happening to Yarraville, anyhow? Last time I looked, it was a shiny, newly-gentrified yuppie paradise. What's with the horrific (bike-related) crime rate?

I brought up all of these issues to anyone who would listen over the next week. Uniform reaction: disappointment in humanity. When someone else shares your disappointment in humanity, it's - well, how can I put it? - really quite a lovely and satisfying feeling. It almost makes getting the thing stolen in the first place worthwhile.

My parents, all things considered, were very sympathetic. Inured by now to my habit of, well, losing stuff, they almost seemed pleased that I had something stolen for real this time. Walking through Yarraville with Mum and Dad, lamenting my misfortune to the tune of soothing parental tut-tutting, I saw something chained to a No Standing sign that looked familiar.

"Why, that bike is just like the one that was stolen!" I thought, amazed at the coincidence. "And the helmet is the exact same colour as..."

Oh.