When I was growing up, we didn’t lock our house. Along with the good public schools, this was the greatest benefit to Westchester living. We had faith that ADT systems of our neighbors would deter any criminals, and for 29 years, that worked.

About two years ago, my parents were robbed. And if you do the math, the cost of what was taken was less than what an alarm system would have cost. Of course, had we even locked the doors, we probably would have avoided the whole mess. But isn’t there a certain luxury to not needing locked doors? What’s the price of not worrying about someone coming into your house?

This is all to say I don’t spend too much time locking up my bike. I sometimes even forget to take the light off of it. And my excuse is that the cost of a new light is worth the freedom of not worrying about what will happen to it.