Entered on 10 June 2003 at 9:19 a.m..

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Last week when I was in London I and a few others witnessed two boys steal a motor scooter. They came along with bolt cutters and cut the lock off, somehow got it started and then drove right past us, while flipping us off. We walked out of the John Foster House, just as they were mounting the scooter to drive away. And the entire time I just stood there unable to compute what was happening. No, that's not exactly true, I just couldn't decide if I believed what was happening. Somehow I knew that because everyone else had stopped (the three of us were now fairly evenly spread across the street) but in my head I kept doubting if they really were stealing the scooter in broad daylight not more than 10 yards from me.

And so I stood my ground, with this daft idea that either they wouldn't drive through our "road block" or that at any moment I'd get another piece of information which would allow me to finally piece together why it was that it looked like they were stealing a scooter. Well when they finally did run our 'road block' the piece finally fit that there was no other piece of information to be had, they were stealing the scooter.

In retrospect, I've tried to piece together what else I could have done. Were there any rocks in the area? Could I have swung my bag. And on and on, how could I have unseated them. I've come to the conclusion that there really isn't any way to get a person off of a moving scooter with out risking injuring them. And as I would probably be sued, it was best that I didn't try. But still I wonder if I could have concluded sooner that they were stealing the scooter what else could I have done.

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