A cycling first, or, “Get your hand out of my bag!” (Comments: 2)

The other evening I was hanging out at Justin’s, a restaurant in Albany that serves good food and is home to many local and national jazz artists. It’s also one of the places my poet friends go after readings.

So there I was with two of those poet friends. We’ll call them Sharon Olds and Anne Sexton to protect their identities. There’s no bike parking at Justin’s or anywhere near it, so I locked my bike, as I always do, to the fence you see on the left side of this photograph:

Photo © Justin’s

We sat inside. I had my back to the window, but Sharon and Anne were on the opposite side of the table looking out the window. As we chatted, Sharon looked out the window and said, “I think someone is touching your bike.”

I turned around and sure enough, there was a guy going through the under-seat bag on my Xtracycle. I hopped up from the table and went outside. A second guy was also there and he turned as I came out.

“Is this your bike?” he asked.

“Yes. What exactly are you doing?”

“We were trying to figure out if it belonged to a customer, otherwise we were going to have it removed,” he replied.

“It belongs to me,” I said, maintaining a fair amount of composure despite wanting to clock the guy with my U-lock.

“Well, we didn’t know that,” said the guy going through my bag.

“You do now,” I said. “Maybe next time you should ask around the restaurant first.”

They seemed miffed, if I can use some strong language. So, Justin’s, here’s my advice: Keep your hands out of my stuff. And get a bike rack.

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