“Hey, Want to Buy a Shirt?”

In the two seconds it took me to move from my car to the door of the liquor store yesterday, I was accosted by a crack head. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence, especially given the locale I was in. One key thing to note is that there was no crack head nearby as I exited my vehicle. If I had intended to be cautious, I would not have noted his presence. That is because he swooped in by bicycle. Crack heads these days are very mobile when they can pick a bike lock. They have to be if they want to find crack.
One thing about having your bike stolen: if you ever find it, you rarely want it back. It’s usually going to be in the river somewhere. Amsterdam is one of the most bicycle friendly cities in the world. It is also one of the cities where you’re most likely to have your bike stolen. When they drain the canals in Amsterdam, it reveals a bicycle graveyard. It is not enough for a thief to merely dismount a bicycle he no longer requires and be on his merry little way. He must dispose of it like a body. If bicycles were more flammable, I’m certain they would be torched on a frequent basis like cars. This destruction is what makes bicycle theft a “theft” as opposed to “borrowing.” I don’t understand the reasoning for this. It’s the same mentality a person uses when kicking over a sandcastle. Human beings may not be inherently evil, but they are douchebags, so I assume they do it to ruin someone’s day. Or perhaps that as bicycle thieves they realize that they have an excellent chance of having their stolen bike stolen from them, and this angers them on a professional level.
Anyway, this particular crack head was different from other in that he didn’t merely want money for nothing. He had something to sell. A shirt. A navy blue Hanes shirt still in it’s package. He lauded it’s freshness like it was fish he had caught that morning. Likely he had stolen it earlier, then realized he had no use for it. Ever the entrepreneur, he tried to turn a profit on it. No such luck. You see: I was already wearing a shirt. I wonder what he would have sold it to me for if I had gone in on the deal. Would it be an outrageous price? Would I be expected to haggle and bring the price down for this dubious shirt?
The only thing that could have made this encounter more random was if he was trying to sell me the shirt he was wearing. That would have been fucked up, and cliché. Losing the shirt off your back.

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