Bike Thieves Meet The Id

Alert:  I will talk politics and religion in this post.

Donald Trump may well be the first American president to rule entirely by his id.  

That's the part of our psyche that reacts to immediate needs and impulses.  Much of our education and acculturation is, essentially, training in not living by our ids.  Of course, your teachers, parents and other authority figures don't tell you that (unless, perhaps, they're psychologists or psychiatirists).  In my milieu, I don't think anyone had even heard of that two-letter term, just as they never used words like milieu.  I didn't hear such words until I went to college.

Because of such training, most of us will only go so far in response to being wronged.  I don't think any previous president would have assassinated the military leader of another country because, well, the leaders of their country did things we didn't like.  (And he said he was doing it to prevent a war:  Even Rudy Giuliani would have a hard time being more Orwellian!)  Likewise, most sexual abuse victims won't do what a 19-year-old in France did to the priest who sexually abused him and his father:  He rammed a crucifix down the prelate's throat.

I have retaliated with physical violence once in my life, when someone tried to sexually assault me.  I'll admit I've thought about reacting with force, but didn't, on more than a few occasions.  And I have made threatening gestures against potential aggressors--including a would-be bike thief I scared away.

I'll admit that at the moment I confronted the perp, I thought about doing what a couple in Visalia, California did. Corey Curnutt and Savannah Grillot baited would-be bike thieves with a bike planted in their front yard.  When someone tried to steal it, they rushed out and beat, with baseball bats, the person who tried to take it.

According to police, they did this four times between July and November of the past year.  I'm guessing that the vigilante couple would have been caught eventually, but they probably hastened their arrests by posting videos of their deeds on YouTube.

Now I'll confess that if I were on a jury, I really wouldn't want to vote to convict Curnutt or Grillot--or the young man in France.  But one reason why we're taught not to live by our ids is that part of our psyche is incapable of restraint.  Plus, almost every ethical and moral system of which I'm aware condemns retaliatory violence.  

All right, I'll end with one more confession:  I cheered when Thelma shot Harlan.  Then I felt ashamed of myself--just a little.  At least I knew "Don't try this at home."  

Did He Ride Hands-Free?

I've done all sorts of things on a bicycle that, until I did them, I wouldn't have thought possible.

And I've done most of the things most people do but would never admit to doing.  Among them are at least one  most people will admit to having done during puberty or even in their teen years, but not as an adult.

I think you know where this is going.

The things I've done that most people won't admit to having done aren't all things I've done on a bicycle.  In fact, it never even occurred to me to try one of those things while astride two wheels.

Hint:  It's something that shocks people when they catch someone doing it precisely because they know they themselves have done it but would never own up to it.

It was a cause of consternation for me when, as a teenager, I was supposed to watch for shoplifters in the Alexander's department store where I was working.  

When I heard some suspicious rustling in the next aisle over--women's wear--I was ready to spring into action. The man in the aisle indeed had a pair of silky panties in his hand.  But he wasn't stuffing them into a bag or his pocket:  Filling the latter would have been difficult, as his pants were pulled down.  So were his underpants. 

As extensive as Alexander's employee training was, it didn't teach us how to deal with a man masturbating in the lingerie aisle.  Being the teenager I was, I was tempted to say something snarky (or that my young mind would have thought clever).  Instead, I called a security guard who dragged the guy away and called the cops.  

I'm guessing that the guy was charged with public lewdness, or some such thing--even though the "public", as far as I know, consisted only of that security guard and myself.

I hadn't thought about the incident in a long time.  A news story that came my way brought it back to mind, and with it, a question I never thought I'd ask:  What would I do if I saw someone masturbating on a bicycle?  Oh, and what if I were a cop and caught someone in the act?

I'm sure there must be something in police academy training that covers, if not such a specific incidence, then at least what to do if a person is pleasuring him or her self in public.  

That is the situation an off-duty police  officer in Macomb County, Michigan (near Detroit) faced recently. She was jogging on an asphalt trail in a county park when she "observed a very tall man in gray pants riding a mountain bike and fondling his genitals in full view of the public."  According to that same report, about half an hour later, another woman saw the same man "on his bike with his penis exposed."

Did he ride hands-free?

The man, William Benjamin Brown, was charged with two counts of "aggravated indecent exposure," which could bring him a two-year prison sentence.

Here's what I'd like to know:  Did he ride hands-free?  Or did he use one hand  to keep a straight line and the other to wiggle?

They Got It Back--Wrecked

In another era--or was it another life?--I wrote for small-town and community newspapers.  In that role, I looked at police reports and blotters. It's a vice in which I still indulge, occasionally.

Sometimes those reports make me laugh.  How else could I react upon reading something like "a caller reported a man yelling and swearing on Street X"?  

On the other hand, I mutter "What fools!" when I read some items, like the one about the woman who left her wallet in a shopping cart.  (It didn't stay there for long.) Or the one about the woman who reported that checks and deposit slips were stolen from her car.  

Then again, I'm from New York, where one of the first things you learn is not to leave anything in your car, or cart!

Perhaps my Big Apple-induced jadedness extends even further than I thought.  In the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, the police blotter reported that a caller complained about "kids on bicycles who kept on going into dumpsters." (Someone called the cops for that?)  But my favorite item is this:  "A Wisconsin Rapids man reported someone stole his child's bicycle...and then brought it back destroyed."

Hmm...Taking something from someone and giving it back destroyed.  For a moment, I thought, "That's what my country did to Iraq." 

(Also check this out.)