Today's Inktober prompt is "shattered". I kept coming back to a recent incident, so I inked it out for the catharsis.A couple of weeks ago, I was leaving work. As I came upon my bicycle in the rack at school, I noticed my tail light was missing.
Now, sometimes, I remove my lights when I park the bicycle just because there are people who will take them. But I'd become too trusting and had begun to just leave my lights attached.
So I was discouraged when I noticed the taillight missing. It wasn't an expensive light, but it served its purpose of helping me stay visible, especially now that the morning rides are getting increasingly darker.
In my discouraged state, I looked around the area a bit and sadly, found my light. Broken in several pieces and strewn about. It was a sad day.
I gathered up all the pieces and tucked them in my bag. Not sure why, I just didn't like seeing my trusty light all shattered and left for dead like that.
I mentioned it to my supervisor who happens to be the administrator in charge of discipline - behavior issues, detentions and such. She in turn told the head of security: A large police officer named Buck.
Buck in turn involved "Security Barb", one of the school resource officers. Barb contacted me:
"Abby
I do have a camera facing some of the bikes. I need some intel on which bike I am looking at..."
"Intel" - doncha just love the CopSpeak?!
Barb showed me some footage, and eventually we found me showing up for work and parking the bike. I was encouraged at how clear the picture was, however, it was footage of mostly the top of my head...
Good ol' Barb, though. She scanned the footage from that fateful day and:
"...found what I think is the incident at about 14:54:55..."
The incident at about 14:54:55, doncha love it!
Anyway, yes, she found the incident, but was unable to identify the perps. Two boys. One swiped at the light and it came off. The second perp picked it up and threw it against the wall.
*sigh*
I thanked Barb very much for her efforts, then wrote the incident off as a disappointing lesson learned.
Today, one of the counselors came by my room and asked to speak with me outside. He asked me about the tail light, what I knew, etc. It seemed strange that he would be asking me about it at this point. I had my bike parked in my room, where I've parked it since The Incident. He noticed I had a different and more secure light on the bike - in my room and not in the rack.
He didn't say so, but I'm wondering now if they continued to investigate and possibly found the tail light violators? I'd told him the light wasn't worth much in a monetary sense, but I was just disappointed in the kids who'd done it.
He was quite sympathetic in a school counselor sort of way. Said, "You'd probably at least like an apology, I bet".
I dunno. I hope the team did find the kids, but I don't necessarily want to know who they are. I just want them to know they got caught.
.
5 comments:
That sucks when something you own is either stolen or destroyed like this, hopefully the perps will be caught and made to pay for their crime, or at least know that they were busted.
You inked out your frustration perfectly, nice job Abby.
Your drawing fits your story exactly. Nicely done. :)
I just told a story tonight of some kids we recently had in the hotel, and how they thought it was great fun to destroy the place. Nothing major, and nothing we couldn't fix, but that wasn't the point. The point was, they had no respect for someone else's property. I caught a few of them in the act and politely told them to quit being hooligans or they would be required to be with their parents at all times. (Who may or may not have been sober enough to supervise.). Anyway, I get how you feel, and I hope the kids find out they've been caught.
Thanks Jimmy, it's just disappointing. Live and learn.
As I told counselor Jim, it would bother me less if some kid took the light to actually use. But, yeah, to take it to destroy it is total disrespect. Lay down the law with those hooligans!
Well that just sucks! The picture captures your mood perfectly I think. I hope people leave your bike alone in the future.
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