The Bicycle thief
No, I’m not referring to the wonderful movie, but rather to an experience I had a few days ago.
I was standing at the corner of avenue Niel and rue Bayen waiting to cross the street in the early afternoon. Next to me there were three other women and we were all waiting for the light to turn. Now I tend to let my eyes wander a little while I’m waiting and I noticed a guy probably 5-6 feet from me next to a bike. I look closer and the guy is trying to clip the chain locking the bike to a pole with some kind of tool… unfortunately I have no idea what tools used to clip chains are called, but it’s not really relevant to the story in any event. Realising he was trying to steal the bike, I took a step closer to him and said: “Excuse me sir, but are you really stealing a bike in the middle of the afternoon while we’re watching?” Clearly he felt that didn’t merit a response other than a shrug and he kept on working on the chain, all the while looking around him. Probably looking to make sure no cops were nearby, which of course they weren’t. So I tried again, saying: “You can’t steal that bike!” at this point he had managed to clip the chain and took off with the bike, leaving me stunned. I looked at the other women who basically shrugged in a “what are you going to do” kind of way and crossed the street. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but considering this is Paris and not somewhere in the US, I was at least confident that he didn’t have a gun.
I didn’t know what to do. The owner of the bike would probably be furious to find his bike stolen. It didn’t look like a very expensive bike, but considering my extremely limited knowledge of bikes it could have been the Bentley of bicycles. So I did what I thought would be the smart thing… I called my dad for advice. Usually I would have called my mom for advice, but this felt like more of a dad-problem, and all I wanted to know was if I should call the police. After explaining the problem to him, he laughed a little at my outrage and told me the police probably wouldn’t be able to do anything, but if it’d make me feel better to give them a call.
So I did. No need to fret, I didn’t call the French equivalent of 911, but the police station. In my mind the owner of the bike would probably report the bike stolen, and maybe it would be useful to have a description of the thief. The police were frankly not impressed with my thinking, and couldn’t have cared less. They didn’t ask for a description of the guy, or my name and number in case they needed to contact me. Now in the grander scheme of things I realise a stolen bicycle isn’t the police’s priority, but shouldn’t they at least have taken a description of the guy and where and when this happened? I’m no cop, so I’m not going to pretend I know how these things should be dealt with, and they probably couldn’t have done much, but that’s exactly what I find so frustrating. The thief was just so rude, and completely unconcerned with us seeing him. He may have gotten the Bentley of bicycles with this ‘score’ (even though it looked more like the equivalent of a Fiat), but karma will get him in the end. I'm counting on it!
(Nov 25, 2005)
I was standing at the corner of avenue Niel and rue Bayen waiting to cross the street in the early afternoon. Next to me there were three other women and we were all waiting for the light to turn. Now I tend to let my eyes wander a little while I’m waiting and I noticed a guy probably 5-6 feet from me next to a bike. I look closer and the guy is trying to clip the chain locking the bike to a pole with some kind of tool… unfortunately I have no idea what tools used to clip chains are called, but it’s not really relevant to the story in any event. Realising he was trying to steal the bike, I took a step closer to him and said: “Excuse me sir, but are you really stealing a bike in the middle of the afternoon while we’re watching?” Clearly he felt that didn’t merit a response other than a shrug and he kept on working on the chain, all the while looking around him. Probably looking to make sure no cops were nearby, which of course they weren’t. So I tried again, saying: “You can’t steal that bike!” at this point he had managed to clip the chain and took off with the bike, leaving me stunned. I looked at the other women who basically shrugged in a “what are you going to do” kind of way and crossed the street. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but considering this is Paris and not somewhere in the US, I was at least confident that he didn’t have a gun.
I didn’t know what to do. The owner of the bike would probably be furious to find his bike stolen. It didn’t look like a very expensive bike, but considering my extremely limited knowledge of bikes it could have been the Bentley of bicycles. So I did what I thought would be the smart thing… I called my dad for advice. Usually I would have called my mom for advice, but this felt like more of a dad-problem, and all I wanted to know was if I should call the police. After explaining the problem to him, he laughed a little at my outrage and told me the police probably wouldn’t be able to do anything, but if it’d make me feel better to give them a call.
So I did. No need to fret, I didn’t call the French equivalent of 911, but the police station. In my mind the owner of the bike would probably report the bike stolen, and maybe it would be useful to have a description of the thief. The police were frankly not impressed with my thinking, and couldn’t have cared less. They didn’t ask for a description of the guy, or my name and number in case they needed to contact me. Now in the grander scheme of things I realise a stolen bicycle isn’t the police’s priority, but shouldn’t they at least have taken a description of the guy and where and when this happened? I’m no cop, so I’m not going to pretend I know how these things should be dealt with, and they probably couldn’t have done much, but that’s exactly what I find so frustrating. The thief was just so rude, and completely unconcerned with us seeing him. He may have gotten the Bentley of bicycles with this ‘score’ (even though it looked more like the equivalent of a Fiat), but karma will get him in the end. I'm counting on it!
(Nov 25, 2005)
posted by Annette at 7:29 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home