Recently I have been trying to go against the natural order of things and go about upon two wheels rather than two legs and the non-existent powers that be have been showing their displeasure by blessing me with punctures, brakes not working and most recently causing me to lose the keys to my bike - Of course I didn’t lose my keys when the lock wasn’t in use, that would have been too easy. I had to misplace them after I had locked my bike up.
How I lost the keys I don’t know, they wer in my pocket attached to my other keys and when I pulled my key ring out of my pocket the bike lock keys were missing. I say keys not because I am particularly security concious and use multiple locks, but because I had two keys for the lock and rather cleverly had neglected to remove the duplicate key from my keyring to store safely somewhere else for just such an occasion as I found myself “celebrating” today.
Luckily for me I was able to buy a replacement key for the lock - Although when I say key, I actually mean a hacksaw!
Even more fortuitous for me is the fact that my bike wasn’t locked up on the street. After all, attacking a bike lock with a hacksaw is hardly the least suspicious of activities to be engaged in and I’d love to see what face a policeman might pull when you try the following conversation occurs:
PC: Allo, allo, allo. What do we ‘av ‘ere then?*
Me: What does it look like? A man with a hacksaw cutting through a bike lock.
PC: Indeed it does rather look like that and why might you be doing this?
Me: Because I don’t happen to have the keys for the lock, that’s why!
PC: Is that so? And this bike, does it belong to you, sir?
Me: Nope, it’s my housemates.
PC: Really, perhaps you’d like to come with me?
Me: Only if you give me a lift home, after I ain’t cycling anywhere with the bike chained up like this.
Believe me, if someone had stopped me to ask me questions about what I was doing it’s highly likely I’d have given answers like this - To say I was not in the best of moods whilst liberating the bike is an understatement.
*Because of course, all policemen speak like this.