On Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007, between 8 and 9 p.m. United States Eastern Standard Time, my bicycle was stolen from the row of bike rails northeast of South Dining Hall. I'm really, truly ticked off about it.
It's not usually a good idea for "being ticked off" to be one's direct and only motivation, although it can be a great primary motivation as long as it leads to other, nobler rationales.
For example, when women didn't have the right to vote in the United Kingdom around the turn of the century, many intellectuals were ticked off about this and were able to translate their frustration into a rational examination of the sources of the problem. Then there was Emily Wilding Davison, who was also ticked off about this. In protest, she went on to step in front of the King's horse and die from trampling-induced injuries.
Clearly, if being ticked off is your sole, direct motivation, bad things can happen. However, this sort of rationalizing doesn't make me any less ticked off that someone stole my bicycle.
It doesn't have anything to do with the bike itself, which was a piece of junk. If the goodness of bicycle seats were ever subject to a rigorous quantitative analysis, then mine would have been only 1-2 percent better than having no seat at all. And, as far as thefts rank, I understand that a Notre Dame student losing $50 worth of bicycle isn't exactly the greatest of injustices.
But someone took the 5-10 seconds necessary to break my $3 bike lock, and the football team is 1-5, and both of these facts continue to piss me off.
All I know is that, when I reported my bike as stolen to the Notre Dame Security/Police, the officer was friendly enough to recommend that I "check the Gug." And, a few days ago, a football player was overheard claiming that he finally purchased a bike, because the ones he stole were always too small for him. And one of Delaware's new defensive lineman liked to ride a baby blue girl's Roadmaster. And nobody on campus jokes about the soccer team stealing bikes.
I don't want to be Notre Dame's Emily Wilding Davison, blindly jumping in front of the 300-pound D-1 athlete version of King George V mounted on my Mt. Fury horse, consequences be damned. So I'll work on not being pissed off, now that they may have finally started working on playing football.
The bike is a red and silver Mt. Fury Roadmaster, 15 speeds, serial number SNFSD07F42508.
