i heart facebook

This Abby and her "new to her" bike. It's a hand me down from my niece and it's nothing fancy, but Abby loves it and it gets her around town with her bff's.



The evening before Abby and I snuck out for a little bike ride down the trail and when we got home I wheeled "my bike" - which is also a hand me down to Abby bike, but she doesn't like "mine" as much as the one she got from her cousin - into the garage. Abby left hers in the driveway. You should put your bike away in the garage, I told her.

Nah, it's fine here and I don't know if I'm finished riding it yet.

So she didn't put it away and I didn't put it away, so it stayed, leaning up against the garage right outside my back door all night. Well at least until 11:30ish. Mike had gone to bed, but I stayed up to have a shower, after which I sat at the computer... which is right at my back door.... to check my email, wrapped in a towel.

Just after I sit down I hear a couple of footsteps on the driveway. Our driveway is gravel, but we have a walkway of patio stones to the back door, so I literally heard 2 steps on the gravel and then nothing. My heart was instantly in my throat even though I figure it must be somebody's dog loose. The light on our garage is on a motion detector and it didn't turn on and I don't hear anything else. A quick peek out the window and I don't see a soul, but I also don't see Abby's bike. I woke Mike and asked if he put Abby's bike away, he hadn't, but he gets up and heads out in the van to see if he could see anything or anybody. He didn't.

We were both pissed and disappointed, I mean what kind of person steals an 8 year old's non-fancy bike? Did they think she had a real Louis Vuitton bike purse? Because that thing was totally fake. Did they think she had wads of cash in her bike purse? Because she didn't just some rocks treasures she's collected while out riding with friends.

So we both post about the stolen bike on facebook and then we go back to bed. This turned out to be both a good and bad idea. Bad because half the school knew Abby's bike had been stolen, while Abby had no idea. We planned on telling her after she got home. No sense getting her all upset first thing in the morning and then dumping her at the sitter's. So when she got off the bus, with tears threatening she asked us... Where is my bike because people at school told me it was stolen.

Who told you that, I asked.

Half the school was talking about it. Jacob told me and Maddie said she thought it was on facebook.

The power of facebook!

Good because half the school knew her bike had been stolen, so when one of the kids from down the street saw a bike abandoned by the rail trail he wheeled it back up to our place to see if it was Abby's. It was. There was much happy dancing going on at our place from both The Abster and myself. The kid who found it, is not one I know all that well... so he probably thought I was a little cuckoo when I was in his face asking what his name was and which house he lived at. He just doesn't realize he's got cookies in his future.

The power of facebook!

Now her bike purse was missing, but Abby went back to where they found the bike and it was there in the grass, all her treasures still intact. As for Abby she is... and I quote... the happiest girl in the world. And her bike, every time she came back from a ride it went right in the garage and I made sure it was locked up tight last night.