I was at a happy hour downtown, sixteen miles from home. I am there, eating chicken wings and big beers and stumble out of the bar and there is my stolen bike. It is locked to a parking meter in front of the bar. I’ve been looking for it for eight months and recognize it immediately. Luckily, there is a bike store nearby. I run and borrow a lock and lock my bike up and then I call the cops. They come (three cars!) and the bar empties out.
The new owner of the bike is there. And me. And about 50 people. He accuses me of trying to steal his bike and wants me to take my lock off. Luckily I had a copy of the police report. I read the serial numbers aloud. Everyone acts like I am crazy, but the numbers match up. The new owner leaves immediately. The crowd shakes their heads in collective disbelief and goes back inside the bar. And then it is just me and my bike, together again.
—Adele Levine is the author of Run, Don’t Walk: The Curious and Chaotic Life of a Physical Therapist Inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center, about her six years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where she rehabilitated soldiers admitted in “worse and worse shape.”
