A Rough Start to a New Year

I must say, January has been the longest month of my life.  We got back from Virginia where we spent the holidays, and Kevin went back to school the very next day while Henry and I got back to our routine.  Then, on Saturday the 11th, our life got interesting, and not in a good way.

Let me fill you in on a little back story.  We were robbed twice last year.  During the summer our car was broken into and several things were stolen, including an ipod and a bike rack.  We were parked in our assigned spot outside our apartment.  Then, in the fall, Kevin's road bike was stolen off our porch.  It was chained with two other bikes to the railing of our porch.  The thief cut the chain and pulled the bike out from the middle of the two other bikes.  I heard a crash as the bikes fell over, but I just thought it was our neighbors being noisy.  Luckily, renters insurance covers things like this, and we were able to replace Kevin's bike.  If it wasn't for insurance, we never could have replaced it because it was somewhat valuable, and we're quite poor.

Fast forward to January 11, approximately 11:15 PM.  Kevin learned his lesson, and now keeps his nice bike hidden away.  But our apartment is tiny and we don't have room to keep all three bikes inside (I have a commuter bike, and Kevin has an older bike he uses to get to school).  So he chained the older bike to an old rocking chair we have on the porch, and kept the bike laying flat on the ground at night.  We had been asleep for about an hour when we heard a crash on the porch.  Learning my lesson from last time when I just rolled over and went back to sleep, I jumped out of bed (the door to the porch is on my side of the bed) and looked out the window.  There, leaning over the edge of our porch, was a dark figure yanking on Kevin's bike.  He must not have realized that it was actually chained to the chair and not just stuck, because he was pulling on it like crazy.  I banged on the window and the guy took off.  However, this bold son of a you-know-what stood at the corner of the next building and watched our porch for a while until someone walked by.  Like he wanted to come back for the bike.  What a creeper. 

My best guess is that this was the same guy that stole Kevin's bike before.  When he sold it, he must have learned that it was actually worth some money and figured that we were bike people.  He must have imagined that this bike was also valuable, which it really wasn't.  It's valuable to us because it gets Kevin to school and back, but it wouldn't be of much value to this guy.  After talking to the police and apartment security, we had a late night and not much sleep.  The next day I went to the office and asked to move to a second story apartment.  They were pretty nice about it.  Although, I have to admit that I ate two packages of double stuffed Oreos by myself that week.  Moving with five days notice is no small feat!  But now we feel much safer to be a little further from the ground.  And all our bikes heaved a great sigh of relief.