It was a beautiful day, so I took Alice to the neighborhood park while Simon was napping. She always rides her bike there, but there is a shortcut through the woods between two houses where I have to carry the bike. The bike is quite heavy, actually, so it's annoying to carry around. Before leaving, I told Zac I thought I'd just leave it at the entrance to the path. We never see anyone there, and what were the chances someone would steal it in the hour at the park?
We rode to the park, and I put the bike along the fence. Alice played happily at the park, and about 20 minutes later, Zac walked over with Simon. He said the bike was fine when he came.
Well, as fate would have it, some miscreant did touch the bike. When we left the park and went down the path to get it, it had been tossed on its side on the other side of the fence. We picked it up, but when Alice tried to ride it, something wasn't right, and soon the chain came off. Our guess is some teenagers came across it and tried to ride it and broke it because they were too big. Zac was unable to fix it, so we'll probably look for another one on Craiglist.
I was mad, not because the bike was expensive or particularly special (it was a third-hand bike we got for free) but it just bugs me that we couldn't leave it unattended for an hour without someone breaking it.
