It took approximately five years until my car was broken into. The passenger window smashed. Then the wing window too. Then it got broken into two more times.

But it took almost 7 years until my bikes were stolen. Just a bike but all my bikes. From my garage. Devastating yes. It all had started approximately in 2009 when I first used my pink mountain bike, which I had returned it to my parents’ garage, so it’s still there. But in 2010, I acquired my KHS steel road bike. Then in 2011, my aluminum cannondale bike. Then in 2014, another bike.

And although my interest in riding has decreased significantly in the last few years, I had always worried whether my bikes would be stolen right out of my garage. So much so that I started locking them in the garage almost two years ago.

But then to my shock, when I went downstairs on Friday evening to ride my bike to David’s place, they were gone. I had hopped downstairs, gave dirty looks to people who looked at me with my helmet on, then when I went to the garage through the side door, I looked to my bikes…and simply, they weren’t there. I immediately went to the backyard, confused. because it would have been very difficult to undo all my bikes. My landlord wouldn’t have done such thing, because that would be absurdly ridiculous without consulting me. And so it was simply done that they were stolen. i saw the broken window in the garage, just so small that a hand could slip through. Then I saw the tool, a long wirey thing.

And I was devastated. I knew what this meant. It meant that it happened earlier. That I didn’t notice. And that it was unlikely for the bikes to turn up again. Because that’s the way this city worked.

And then, the process. I patted myself on the back only slightly for registering my bikes with the city database. But I was not happy, of course. I called police. Then I hunted for the serial numbers in my place, trying to gather all the information, and set my expectations for what I needed to do next. I contacted my neighbors and the landlord. FIX the window.

And once all of that was done, I sat at my desk as I felt like my belongings, my items…were all violated.

Didn’t I care for the bikes enough? I didn’t like the idea of grubby hands going through all the things that I had on the bike, lest even riding it. Did I have things in the trunk bag? Food perhaps? And that new tube that I had stuffed inside? As well as the tire lever? Displeased.

And so once the police arrived as well as CSI to brush fingerprints and my landlord who so obnoxiously went through all of this almost with a smug look (yes, isn’t it great that your things weren’t taken? and hey you just quoted it as $500 missing), I sat alone and there was nothing I could do. My bikes that I had carefully collected were gone. And here it was, a time of history simply erased and stolen.

Welcome to San Francisco?