Lost, Then Found

I almost tackled a little girl riding around Lake Nokomis the other day. She looked nice enough, but the bike she was riding was the same kind we recently had stolen from our yard.

Sadly, Cady learned about theft firsthand last week when we realized her new Trek mountain bike was stolen from our front yard (ya, I don't wanna hear it!) overnight. I spent an hour or so the next day combing the alleys in our neighborhood, with no good clues. Nothin'.

Eventually, we'd given up any hope of finding the bike. But about two days later, Tony and I went for a run along Minnehaha Creek and we stumbled upon the missing merchandise about 3 miles west of our house. The initial prognosis wasn't good. There were some severe life-threatening injuries, but there was hope we could save it.

The bike shop we bought the bike at told us the bike's injuries were terminal and there was no fixing it, that we should say our goodbyes and prepare for the worst. When I asked if they could swing us a deal since we'd just bought the bike new only a couple of months back we were offered the deal of a life time: $30 off. It felt like a joke.

It was time for a second opinion. Lots of running around, but I'm happy to say the bike will be good as new in under a week. Of course, I'm glad that the whole thing turned out pretty okay... Cady likes to tell people about what the tire on her bike looked like, that we just happened to find it while out on a run together (while skipping church nonetheless!). We'll spend less than $100 to fix the bike, which would have cost three times that to replace.

I'm still annoyed. Suddenly, my little girl has learned one more thing about life that I wasn't ready for: that we're all vulnerable to each other, which can sometimes be a scary thing. The sex talk seems much more natural to me... at least that one made her (and me) laugh a little.

Be well,
Laurie