A quick warning.
There are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show.
If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org from WBEZ Chicago, it's this American Life.
I'm Sean Cole, sitting in for Iroglass.
This is not a story about bicycle theft.
It's a story about a counterintuitive impulse exhibited by the human species in which a lot of bicycles happen to get stolen.
The first bike belonged to a physical therapist named Carrie Helminger.
This was in Seattle back in 2015.
She rode her bike to work, like always, locked it up securely, like always, and when she came down to get it at the end of the day, it was gone.
She felt about this how you might.
Imagine mad, you know, like, why do you want my bike?
And now how am I going to get home?
And it's late and I'm tired and just frustrated and pissed and all that.
The cops were remarkably responsive.
Came right away.
They were also deeply pessimistic.
Said all the usual things.
You're not likely to get it back.
We get reports like this all the time.
There's really nothing we can do unless something happens.