Angry Note To Thief Prompts Good Samaritan To Buy Woman A New Bike
Angry Note To Thief Prompts Good Samaritan To Buy Woman A New Bike
CHICAGO (CBS) -- When someone stole Olgi Freyre's bicycle while she was at work, she posted a scathing note to the thief, just to vent her frustration, but the note got the attention of a Good Samaritan who came to her aid.
Freyre's $700 bicycle was stolen in the middle of the day from a bike rack near Lincoln and Belmont avenues, outside the art supply store where she works. It was her only mode of transportation, and she'd worked hard to buy it, so she wrote an angry note to the thief and taped it to a light pole near the bike rack.
"To the piece of s*** that stole my bike from this bike rack. Do you know how hard I worked to buy that bike? Actually, you stole it WHILE I was at work," she wrote. "I'm 19 and I payed (sic) for it completely out of my own pocket. I work 40 hours a week. I go to school part-time. And that bike was my only form of transportation."
The story about her angry note caught the attention of Bob Curry, a random stranger who reached out to her, remembering how it felt to have his own bike stolen.
He and his daughter took Freyre to a bike shop, and bought her a new one.
"They were both super amazing people that sort of restored my hope in society," Freyre said.
She said she wasn't looking for attention, or trying to shame the thief when she wrote the note. It was about catharsis; she just wanted to vent so she could feel better after her bike was stolen.
"I didn't write the letter to get sympathy or anything, or for even someone to see the note and feel bad. That's not why I wrote it. I just wrote it because I was really upset," she said. "I felt like it was the only thing that I could really do, you know, just to get my anger out."
Curry wasn't the only one to offer to reimburse her in some way for her stolen bike.
"People have been offering me money, and bikes, and just like a lot of crazy stuff," she said.
She met Curry and his daughter at a bike shop on Wednesday, when they bought her a new set of wheels.
"I'm super-excited and stoked," Freyre said. "It's pretty awesome. I'm just really happy, and excited. It's been like an awesome, weird story."
