Famous last words

Those of you who follow this blog know that, a couple of months ago, the back wheel of my bike was  stolen while I was in the zendo at 5 in the morning. I wrote a blogpost about it mostly so that other bikers wouldn't suffer the same fate. In that blogpost I advised: "If it's not locked, it's likely to get stolen." And this morning, I got proof of that, in good ways and bad.
As I walked out of the zendo this morning, I noticed that the one thing that I hadn't locked on my bike was missing: my seat. Now, I had actually tried to lock my seat with a seat leash after my wheel was stolen but I couldn't get the screw undone to attach the leash and I figured, if they didn't steal it the first time, they wouldn't steal it again. Clearly, I was wrong.
I have to admit that I laughed when I saw that my seat was missing. It was pretty funny. It really was the one thing I hadn't locked and I wondered if the people who had stolen my wheel were assembling a bike of stolen pieces. I thought that maybe they finally had a seat and so someone now had a complete Christmas present of a new bike (well, new to them at least). But then I remembered that Christmas was two days ago and really, this was just about me not having a seat because someone stole it.
And then I noticed how nice it was that the things that were locked were still there. It made me feel like I had some control over the situation. And I also noticed that having your seat stolen is way better than having your wheel stolen because you can still ride your bike.
So I decided that I would go back to Avenue Cyclery today to buy a new seat and that I would ask them to install my seat leash so that it doesn't get stolen again. I also started to think of ways to avoid this in the future. I considered asking if I could keep my bike in the building, considered locking it in a different place, etc. And then I thought, "Hmmm, am I avoiding my suffering? Aren't I supposed to embrace it?" But then I thought, "Ya know, I think I'm pretty intimate with this suffering now. We've hugged a couple times, I'm familiar with the contour of this suffering's body, I don't need to hold on to it anymore."
So, I'm off to get a new seat and scope out a bunch of places where I can lock my bike so that I can rotate it around so it's not such a sitting duck. Part of me is a little worried about moving it somewhere new. I feel like I know the people who steal it from its current spot- they're kinda lazy and won't steal things that are actually locked. Maybe if I move it somewhere else I'll be showing it off to someone with lock cutters who'll take the whole bike. I guess that would be a whole new kind of suffering and I'm not really interested in embracing that.
In the meantime guys, lock your bike- all of it!