confiscated

i'm sitting here at the computer... hair soaking wet and completely chilled after getting caught in a torrential down pour / thunderstorm while walking home after work.

why the hell would i walk home from work you might ask?

today, sometime between 1 and 3 pm, the bastards who supposedly enforce bike theft safety on the lovely Penn state Campus, decided that it would be a good idea to steAl a carefully LOCKED and totally sweet cross bike, off of the rack. to accomplish this they must have busted through a 15 year old kryptonite u-lock - not an easy task i presume. and they did this all in broad daylight.

i call them up and it went something like this:

me: my bike was stolen
bitchy bike police (bbp): where was it
me: in front of my building
bbp: oh no - it wasn't stolen. we took it - it wasn't registered
me (shocked): you took a locked up, and carefully maintained bicycle from the bike rack?
bbp: yup - and you can't get it back until tomorrow. we're closed. it was 3:15pm!!!

the "yup" response was cheery topped of with a hint of bitch and an air of extreme satisfaction. my blood began to boil, and all sorts of 4-letter adjectives were at the tip of my tongue.

but then i recognized - she had something i wanted. my bicycle. it would serve no purpose to piss her off. it would furthermore be a waste of my time and energy. getting my bike back today was out of the question.

click - i hung up.

i dont understand the bike registration process on campus.

1) they don't profit from it
2) it's not like i couldn't remove a sticker and file off a serial number if i ever wanted to steal someone's stupid bike
3) how does stealing my bike fit into the effort of preventing bike theft around campus? and duh - it's a super sweet bike (and quite new) so it OBVIOUSLY hasn't been left there long!

one might compare this to the irony of capital punishment (on a different level of course)

why kill someone, who killed someone to prove that killing someone is wrong?

later that day it was time to go home. i packed my timbuk2 bag up, and made my way downtown to visit my friends at FreezeThaw, to vent and scope out a new U-lock. the walk home isn't extremely long, however the incoming wind, rain and thunder made it semi-tortuous. although I must admit that while i was completely soaked upon walking into my house - the contents of my messenger back were completely dry.

nice work timbuk2!

there are multiple morals to this story.

1) i either need to get a commuter that i can stomach putting stickers on and getting beat up, or i need to commit to always stashing my ride inside.
2) having a decent messenger bag is the best investment ever - i highly recommend it.
3) and last, but certainly not least... when your bike gets stolen, you can count on getting rained on - all the way home.