Why I avoid being in a vehicle with my family.

A mostly true conversation in the Yukon Cornelius after seeing bikes propped up against and locked to a stop sign in our neighborhood:

Boy Child:  Someone put their bikes next to the stop sign AGAIN!  Seriously?  Those bikes are going to get stolen one of these days.

Girl 1:  How?  They're locked.

Boy Child:  THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY CAN'T BE STOLEN.  Use your common sense.  Someone could just use a blow torch.  In fact, I'll get a blow torch and steal them.

Me:  Lifting my eyebrow to hubby.

Girl 1:  Seriously?  How would you steal them with a blow torch?

Boy Child:  You would just put the blow torch at the bottom of the pole and blow through the pole with fire.  Then, the bikes are yours.

Hubby:  Yeah, but they'd be locked together.  And you'd have a broken down stop sign pole.  AND a blow torch is noisy so someone would probably call the cops.  It would be better to just use a hack saw.


Me:  A hack saw???  Really?  Isn't a hack saw kind of like a butter knife?  A hack saw would not cut down a stop sign pole.


Hubby *kind of condescendingly*:  An electric hacksaw, babe?  Yes, yes it would.



Me:  Duh.  Of course, an electric hacksaw.  But, where would you plug it in?



Hubby:  Rolling his eyes at me.  Really?



Boy Child:  Well, I still think a blow torch would work better.  I am not sure about the noise.  Do they make silencers for blow torches?  And, well, as for them being locked together you could just walk them home like that.  Because I guess it would be a little hard to ride one and carry the other.



Hubby:  Well, yeah.  And someone might see you and wonder why you were carrying two bikes home in the middle of the night and leaving behind a downed stop sign pole that had been blow torched through.



Girl 1:  Yeah, but you still wouldn't be able to RIDE them because they would be locked together.  Duh! 


Boy Child:  DUH!  Use your common sense!  You could just cut through the locks with a.............what's that thing called, dad?  What would you use to cut through the locks?


Hubby:  A bolt cutter?



Boy Child:  Yeah.  A bolt cutter!  You could just cut through the locks with a bolt cutter once you got them home.  In your garage.


Hubby:  Duh!  Use your common sense!  If you were going to steal the bikes, it would be a lot easier if you just took the bolt cutter with you and cut through the lock there at the stop sign pole.



Boy Child (somewhat deflated):  Yeah.  I guess you could do it that way.  (Silence.)  But using a blow torch would be way more fun.



Note to self:  Do NOT lock my bike (when I get one) to a stop sign pole in my neighborhood.  Ever.