Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
If you've never seen Red Panda's act, I have some bad news: you might never see it. Apparently as Rong Niu, better known by her stage name Red Panda Acrobat, was traveling home from Denver to San Francisco last week, someone straight up walked off with her luggage, which included her famed seven-foot unicycle, from which she kicks a shitload of plates and catches them on her head. I don't know how someone simply walks off with a seven-foot unicycle, it is not what you would call inconspicuous, but that's exactly what her agent Pat Figley said happened.
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Sure it is possible that someone just walked off with her stuff and never thought to bring it back to the airport or call the police when they got home, opened the bag, and thought hey, when did I get a seven-foot unicycle and all these fancy-looking plates? It sounds fishy, right? And, what's worse, it apparently had an effect on her act.But what if I told you this was more than just a random crime? That there could be a Bay Area-wide conspiracy brewing. What if someone, or maybe even a bunch of co-conspirators, were looting unicycles, and maybe even big floppy shoes, and water-squirting flowers? What if Red Panda is just the beginning, and this goes all the way to the Big Top?As FOX KTVU reports, this did not end with the Red Panda:As Figley tells the story, Niu had landed at SFO from Denver and was waiting for her bag – filled with her 7-foot unicycle – to come off the conveyor belt. She saw it from a distance. But as she was about 10 to 15 feet away, someone “must have grabbed it,” Figley said. He said it's possible someone even took it by mistake, and if so, he's hoping they return it, no questions asked.
Two in a single day? That is a Red Panda unicycle-sized coincidence.Whether it is a coincidence or not, another unicycle was stolen the same day – this time an electric one, from a 24-year-old woman riding it in the 3900 block of San Leandro Street in Oakland.