goodbye stroller

Our stroller was stolen. Yes, someone stole two little kids’ stroller. Five years of living at a marina in Philadelphia - big, dirty, crime-ridden Philadelphia - and we never had anything stolen. Less than two weeks of living at a marina halfway between Jacksonville and Jacksonville Beach, Florida (for all intents and purposes, the suburbs) and our stroller is swiped. WTF indeed.

That's our stroller, the red Phil & Ted's double that masquerades as a single.
This photo was taken at the zoo when Matilda was only a few weeks old.
You can't see her in the photo, but she's in the bassinet lying under Freja, who is up high in the jump seat.
Being pushed by their Meme and spending time with pals Harvey and Ander.

It’s not like we really need the stroller. Pushing two kids around in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity is not that practical. We’ve talked about selling it and buying something smaller. We’ve talked about how we’re happy with a small umbrella stroller and the Ergo baby carrier. We’ve talked about, and subsequently bought, a bike trailer to tow the girls. But still. 

Someone stole something that is mine. And now I’m doing the cliche things that most victims of theft do: I’m locking everything. I leave the bike and trailer on the dock next to our boat - locked. I leave the boat - locked. We leave the car - locked. (Okay, we have always locked the car when we leave it, but I used to regularly forget to lock our bike at the bike rack at our marina in Philly and we never, never, never locked the boat in Philly.)

So beyond the actual fact that we’re short a nice stroller that was pretty handy to have, I’ve changed my behavior. Not out of choice but out of . . . persuasion, you could say. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Year after year of not locking up my personal belongings was eventually going to end up in theft. I suppose.

Yet, it was at the marina. I will wax poetic about the tight-knit boating community, and the interdependence and trustworthiness of boaters.  I lament that the social capital that is evident among boaters is sorely missing in the general public. I sing the praises of living at a marina for the neighborly feel. My fondness for marinas and boaters makes this theft that much harder to deal with. Everyone we meet here is nice, friendly, generous, but it’s hard to shake the idea that a stroller (a stroller!) could go missing so easily and so quickly from the marina property.