Monday, April 10, 2006

If someone steals your bike from the basement...

what do you do?

My upstairs neighbor (you can read more about her HERE) recently had to face this dilemma. If you've gone back and read the story, you know that she tends to leave the windows and/or doors open. Well, at the end of February (the 25th, to be exact) I had gone on my trip to Poland on my quest for pottery. When I left at o'dark thirty in the morning, I went down to the basement to get a box in which to carry my treasures home. I went out the basement door, making sure to close it, QUIETLY, so as not to wake Jordyn up in her room directly above the door.

When I returned from my jaunt (successful in my pottery shopping), it was close to 10:00 p.m. The basement door was open. I will generally go down through the basement to close it, but my friend Sandra was helping me carry the box of stuff up the stairs (yes, it WAS heavy, and no we DID NOT drop it), so I said to myself, ' I'll just close it tomorrow on the way to church, if it's still open.' Sure enough, the following morning, the door was still open. Hannah went down to close it and we went on our way.

Later that afternoon, the doorbell rings. It's Upstairs Neighbor. She says, "My bike was stolen from the basement."
"really?" I ask.
"Yeah. It was there a few days ago when I went to check on the train table."
"oh...well, that's a shame. You need to call the MP's (military police) and file a report." I tell her.

All the while I am thinking, 'serves you right for constantly leaving the door open' -which I know is not very Christian of me. But beyond always leaving the door open, she leaves her bike in the COMMON room. Okay - that's sort of the purpose of this room - a "quickie" place to put things. But I would venture to say only temporarily. Thing is...they took her bike, which was behind two other bikes (her son's and husband's), along with the helmet. She claimed it was locked up...I can't be sure. I do know it was there on Friday morning. It was dark on Saturday morning when I went out. I KNOW I locked the door behind me when I left. So...the bike was probably stolen sometime Saturday night when I saw the door open again.

I don't feel guilty that I didn't close the door. But I'd have been ticked as all get out if it had been worse...like vandalism to our things in storage, etc. I did not, however, have the heart to tell her that it was her own darned fault and she should have learned a lesson.

Well - I should have learned my lesson as well. Had I spoken up and reminded her that SHE is the one who constantly leaves the doors open, I wouldn't be ticked off today.

I am STILL constantly closing the doors. Now...not only the basement door, but because the weather's gotten a bit warmer, she has decided it is time to prop the MAIN stairwell door open. Not my idea of secure. I've posted signs...they have been removed. I've kicked the granite block holding the door open off the steps so many times, it's got my permanent footprint on it. I'm tempted to put that thing in the dumpster, but then we'd have to deal with the planter/ashtray propping the door open.

Why do people insist on defying the rules that are so obviously made to PROTECT us? I guess that the little t-shirts she has hanging in the back of her pick-up truck give an indication as to what kind of person she is: one says "I HATE You" and the other says "Who needs big
T-ts"(breasts - I just can't put that garbage in my blog!). If you NEED to put that crud where everyone can see it, I guess you don't need rules!

Sorry for the ranting today...I'm just tired of the doors!

8 comments:

Sue said...

Someday she may lose something much more precious and unfortunately a lesson will finally be learned -- until then, you might have to keep doing it so that YOUR precious items stay safe :)

Anonymous said...

you have to pray for her (that she GROWS UP)...

and you must "kill her with kindness" as my momma says.

But I don't blame you. As soon as I would have shut that door, I would done a mean spiteful happy dance.....(I am not always so upstanding and decent. I am human!)

rennratt said...

I don't think that I could have held it in. I have no edit filter for stupidity. I am glad, however, that you do!

Sandy said...

I agree with SB - clearly this is not a mature adult. Sorry you have the "joy" of dealing with her.

Sue said...

hey -- to keep things interesting :) -- here from michele's :)

My float said...

It's always the little things that tip us over the edge! My neighbours are in the middle of some huge public hate-fest which involves lots of door-bashing, yelling, letting down of car tyres...Lovely.

i wouldn't lose any sleep about leaving the door open!

Kara said...

well, i'd just keep kicking that brick away every time she opens the door...eventually she'll either give up or you will get a nice conversation out of it...here via michele today

Anonymous said...

Why don't you talk to her and tell her face to face that she is putting everyone in the building at risk?