About a month ago, Taylor’s bike was stolen.  We went to bed one night, forgetting to bring it upstairs and put it on the balcony (and out of the rain).  When we woke up the next morning, the bike was gone.  This isn’t a new experience for us.  When we lived in Pomona, our garage was broken into.  The only thing stolen was a bike.  A few months later, just after we had moved to a different apartment down the street, our new garage was broken into and a lot of stuff was stolen.  Surprisingly, none of the stolen items were bikes.  But we’ve had our share of thieves taking our stuff, so although it’s maddening and annoying, it’s not surprising.  Of our other two thefts, we haven’t ever been able to recover any stolen items.  Luckily the second (and worst) time, we had renters insurance which covered our losses.  This time, since it was only a bike gone, it wasn’t worth the deductible to try to get a new one through the insurance.  The bike has been gone for almost a month now and we were pretty sure we would just have to replace it one of these days.  I sent Taylor late Saturday night to the grocery store to get me some oil.  I had to make some salad dressing for Sunday dinner and I ran out.  When he got there, he called and told me that the stolen bike was there, locked up to a bike rack!  I couldn’t believe it!  We didn’t know what to do so Taylor waited around for a little while to see if anybody came out to ride it home but nobody showed up.  Finally he went into the store and asked the manager about it.  She told him that it had been sitting there for almost a week.  We can’t figure out why the thief would have locked it up and left in unless he planned on coming back for it later.  But why would he leave it for a week?  It’s a mystery to me but it was obviously Taylor’s bike.  It’s kind of unique looking and it was exactly the same as when it was stolen, with the exception of a raised seat.  We didn’t have a way to unlock the bike so Taylor went back the next morning with bolt cutters and stole it back!  I’m still in shock that he actually saw it and was able to steal it back.  Merry Christmas to us!