Rookie Me Blind

The other day I went to the Library to take care of some important Library business and use the downstairs 15minute stand up peasant computer. As I stood there with my helmet on and fastened checking the blog roll I noticed over the gangsta rap quietly playing in the back ground that a uniformed agent of security was approaching on a pursuit angle directly for me. I looked right into her eyes as she walked up saying, "Are you the one who rides a little gray bike with a red seat and brown handle bars?" I replied, " Why yes maam, that is indeed my steed, is everything okay?" "Well, you have locked through the bike of the person next to you and now he cannot leave", she said with the blank expression of someone in the security industry. She radioed to the other security agent upstairs at the bike rack that I was on the way. I walked up and immediately apologized to the person that I was illegally detaining with the rookie way in which I used my 4.7lb lock though his cable housing. The first thing he said was, "It's okay man, I knew you were a professional by those wheels, those are some fine wheels, how much did they cost, actually how much does a whole bike like this go for?" That question is so often posed to me during my interlude with the common folk that I have come to expect it yet it still always gives me a tickle. As I freed his bike from mine I began a verbal itemized list of the retail cost(not what I paid or did not but what he wanted to hear) of my bike part by part all the way down to the bar tape and carbon head set spacer. He was impressed with the amount of money I was talking about as I ended the tally with the 2 Conty Gator Skins at prolly around 45$ a piece. I did not go into the whole it is not about money theory with him because that wasn't part of his original question but instead I offered a final apology and we rolled away in separate directions.