Sunday, June 24, 2007

The Unkindness of Strangers

I'm feeling pretty bitter about living in the city right now.

So a friend of mine needed a bike. We tried and tried to find her one and nothing seemed to be quite right. Bikes in the city of TO are way over priced, I think. Especially used ones. So anyway, I dug up some parts and grabbed my mom's old racing frame and went to work putting together the coolest bike ever. During all of that I realised that what I really want to do is put together a fleet of coolest bikes ever and use them to give bike tours of the city.

Since I had a big pile of bike junk already from the first bike, I was already well on my way. I bought a clunker off of craigslist and got another one for free off of craigslist and chained them and all the parts up out front.

I had a friend, H, come visit from out of town. I get around mostly on bike these days so I figured if she and I were going to hang out, she'd need a bike. Also on my bike-to-do list was teaching my friend, A (of breakfast buddy fame) to ride. Can you believe she's never ridden a bike before? Anyway, H and A are of similar size so I figured that the clunker bike was an ideal candidate for both tasks. I fixed it up. H said it was a really smooth ride, despite looking like a pile of rusty bars.

So yesterday morning, I got up and looked out the window at my pile of bike stuff, including the now-functional clunker. Or, rather, not including the clunker. Overnight, someone had stolen it. No teaching A to ride. Great.

After dim sum with the Usual Suspects (I know, dim sum on a Saturday, what the heck?) I met up with an old friend and wandered around the city a bit. I had a small pick-me-up when we ran across a group of buskers on xylophones at Bloor and Spadina. It was really neat. There 5 xylophones.

That temporary regrowth of faith in my fellow man was quite dispelled this morning, however, when I looked out my window to see some guy with a pair of pliers ripping apart one of my frames.

"Hey!" I yelled out the window, "that's my bike!"

"It's not a bike, it's a frame," the guy responded quite calmly. Your logic is infallible, I thought.

"Thanks," I snapped. "It's still mine."

He gestured to my pile of bike stuff and asked if it was all mine. I told him it was.

Without any apology or atonement whatsoever he said "okay" and walked away from the pile.

I think I'm going to get a pellet gun, like one might use for deterring rodents in the country. Not strong enough to really hurt them but enough to sting them and make sure they don't come back for a while.

That way, instead of semantic debates about the differences between the word "bike" and the word "frame" I can vent my frustration and get the point across all at once.

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