text: My ride, a 2013 Wolf Brand Blaze II was running well. It gave me no signs of any trouble - even after having recently given me problems on an almost daily basis. I had done a significant amount of work on it - spending nearly an entire day over the recent holiday weekend tearing it down, fixing it, and putting it back together. Today was the first time in weeks it was running well and I was happy to be riding it without the fear of stalling in an intersection and getting hit by a car. It was louder than normal since I recently had to remove a piece of the cheap Chinese muffler that had partially fallen off, but I was happy to be riding again nonetheless. It was almost seven, it was hot, and I was ready to go home. I had just spent a few hours after work helping a friend fix a computer problem. For the first time in several weeks I would be home before nine and I was looking forward to it. I had a full tank of gas and recently found a back road to take me part of the way home. It was overgrown with huge trees and flowery bushes with a lake just off the side of the road. The sun was gradually sinking lower - not setting yet, but still a beautiful sight on the lakes dark, still water. It was going to be a beautiful ride home I said to myself. As I exited the serene back road and entered a much busier road, traffic became much more intense - speeds increased significantly, and the ride quickly turned from peaceful to defensive as cars careened past me trying to beat me to the next stop light. I was driving the speed limit, but that wasn’t good enough for them. This however was nothing new to me - I did this everyday and I continued on my way. As I approached the stop light for my next turn, I noticed no signs of trouble with the scooter. It was running smoothly. I was proud of the fact I had done all the work myself and that it showed. I was happy. I turned the corner and started heading for home. “Only 25 minutes to go!” I told myself. It was only a few minutes later I realized I had a lot longer than 25 minutes to go. As I rode down the road at speeds in excess of 50 miles an hour I heard a very loud bang and my scooter shut off. The power was on, the key was in the “on” position, but the engine wasn’t running. I was gliding down the road with only my momentum. I pulled to the side of the road, into the bicycle lane and eventually the sidewalk. This was a behavior I had never experienced before from my scooter, or any of the other scooters and motorcycles I had owned in the past. I would push the start button and hear only a high pitched whirring noise... this didn’t sound good... I immediately reached for my phone to call a friend for help. I hated to interrupt anyone’s dinner, but surely someone would be available to come pick me up. To my surprise, however, the screen wouldn’t turn on... it was completely black. It was now that I remembered a GPS application, which I never use, had accidentally been opened a few nights ago and I had forgot to close it. For the past two days it had been running in the background draining my battery. I was now a lot further than 25 minutes from home. I tried for about 10 minutes to fix the scooter - or at least see what was wrong. I had a limited amount of tools, a screwdriver, a spark plug socket, and a wrench that didn’t fit any of the bolts on the scooter. The Chinese must have sent me the wrong wrench... or the wrong scooter. After getting nowhere I decided to start walking. I didn’t really have any other choice... I couldn’t leave the scooter on the sidewalk; it would surely be gone when I got back. I knew there had to be a gas station somewhere up ahead. I didn’t know the area well but I knew I had visited a 7-11 on this road once before. The scooter weighs 300 pounds, and even though it was on wheels, trying to balance it and pull it along with you while you walk down a narrow sidewalk is not a lot of fun. Even less fun however is trying to walk a 300-pound scooter down a narrow sidewalk while you get yelled at and honked at. First it was a guy in a huge pickup truck - he pulled as close to the sidewalk as possible, yelled something I couldn’t understand, and stepped on the gas hard enough that his turbo-diesel monstrosity let out a loud rumble coupled with a huge cloud of engulfing black smoke. A few more blocks up there was a family of bicyclists. I moved onto the grass so I wouldn’t be in the way, but they just kept yelling, “Move out of the way so we don’t fall in the ditch!” The ditch they were referring to was only a few feet from me for the entire walk. It was filled with old, smelly, motionless water and a plethora of frogs and insects - mostly mosquitoes that started biting me as soon as I broke down. There was enough trash in the ditch that I imagine it could have passed for a third-world countries water supply. Further down the road I heard a loud motorcycle coming from behind me. It kept creeping closer and closer until it finally felt like it was right next to me. And, it was. I turned to my left and saw a young black kid - likely in his early twenties. I had seen him before - riding around town helmet-less on a loud dirt bike doing stunts and weaving in and out of traffic, all whilst driving at least twenty miles over the speed limit. This time however, he wasn’t driving fast - he was driving as slow as possible. He was in the bike lane, right next to the sidewalk, holding his clutch and revving the engine as loud as possible. If he said anything at all I couldn’t hear it over the sound of his loud, obnoxious death trap. After a few minutes he grew tired of harassing me and left, only to make a U-turn and come back for more a block later. Finally he gave up and left, but not before several more motorcyclists sped past, revving their engines and honking their horns. Finally after what felt like an hour I saw what looked like a shopping center in the distance. As I got closer I realized it was in fact the 7-11 I had been to before. I walked my scooter into the parking lot, parked it on the sidewalk and collapsed for a few minutes; taking a break to drink the bottle of water I had in my scooter seat. “Water has never tasted so good” I thought to myself. The older gentlemen browsing the Netflix machine just looked at me like I was crazy. I went inside and the clerk was gracious enough to let me use the phone. “Local calls only” he said, “And keep it short!" In a world where everyone uses cell-phones and pay phones are a thing of the past, I would’ve paid good money to use one for just a few minutes. I paged through a phone book - something I haven’t used in over a decade and found the towing section. My first attempt didn’t go so well, “We don’t tow motorcycles and we definitely don’t tow scooters!” was the response from the guy at the first company I called. The second company was able to help, but still not very pleasant. And they were expensive, “We charge $75 to pick it up and $3 a mile after that.” I decided it wasn’t worth paying a few hundred dollars to tow a scooter and told the clerk I would leave the scooter in front of the store and call for a cab. I would come back tomorrow and figure out how to move it. The cab company was happy to help and dispatched a driver who was slated to arrive in twenty minutes or less. As I moved the scooter closer to the front door in hopes that it wouldn’t be stolen overnight, an older unkempt man who was smoking a cigarette approached me offering to give me and the scooter a ride. I was hesitant at first until the 7-11 clerk came outside and told me not to worry, “he’s a regular - he come’s here all the time!” Against my better judgment, I agreed to take his offer -- after all it was much cheaper and more convenient to get it over with right then and there. I went back inside the store and called the cab company, “I need to cancel my cab... I am moving to another location... I’ll call you when I get there...” the woman was hesitant and sounded confused, “Ok, but he’s right around the corner, Sir.” I stepped outside and sure enough, he was right there, “Did you call for a cab?” He said, talking cheerfully while watching me try to load a scooter into a barely running 1980’s Chevy van that was blaring the Tampa Bay Ray’s game on the radio. “Yes, but I won’t need a ride until I drop this scooter off near the airport.” I replied. I could tell he was eager for the fare, “Oh no problem - I’ll just follow you. If you don’t get in yet I won’t have to charge you!” he replied. Finally, some good news. The driver of the van, whom I came to know later as Bob, yelled out the window to the cab driver, “I have to go pick up two other kids on the way. They’re around the corner in a neighborhood selling candy.” The cab driver and I looked at each other confused but he agreed to follow us. We quickly left the gas station and headed around the corner. No longer than two minutes later we were pulling up to a dark street with an obese, young, black kid carrying a plastic tote filled with candy. “Did you sell any?” Bob asked between several long drags on his cigarette. “No! This neighborhood fucking sucks!” the boy said angrily as he crawled into the front of the van. “Did you buy a motorcycle?” he asked. “No - we have to drive this guy and his scooter over by the airport. Where the hell is Gabriella?” Bob was visibly annoyed with the boy and his lack of sales for the day. The boy didn’t seem very happy either, “No one wants to buy this shit” he said, under his breath. We rounded the corner and Bob was flashing his lights, honking his horn, and yelling out the window, “Gabby, Gabby?!” From a dark porch a young, pudgy blonde girl emerged carrying her own blue plastic tote filled with candy. Gabby seemed just as surprised as the boy to see me, “I have to sit on the floor?” she asked. “No - sit on your box - we have to give this guy a ride!” Bob said. Gabby laughed and sat on the floor, “If I sit on this box I am going to break it.” she said. We left the neighborhood and headed for the airport. Every bump we hit made the van squeak louder and as we continued speed down the road Bob’s van sounded like it might explode even worse than my scooter. “Yep - I’ve got over 300 thousand miles on this one!” Bob said. “I put close to 1200 miles a day on it.” Bob seemed happy - like he had accomplished something. The closer we got to the mechanic the more the kids were complaining, “We’re hungry” Gabby exclaimed several times. “Yeah, what are you going to buy us for dinner tonight?” the boy asked. “We’re going to your house for dinner! I’m not buying you guys anything to eat.” Bob said, as we grew closer and closer to my destination. I quickly chimed in, “If you want to stop any place that serves fast food I’ll buy you guys dinner! I really appreciate you...” Bob interrupted, “NO! We don’t have time.” Gabby and the boy weren’t thrilled. “I only sold three dollars worth of candy tonight... I can’t buy diapers and buy dinner.” Gabby said as she turned and looked at me in the back of the dimly lit van, “I have two kids and another one on the way.” Bob interrupted, “It smells like gas back there... do I smell gas?” I don’t know what he expected... there’s a scooter with a gallon of gas in the back of his van that’s tipped on it’s side. Of course it smells like gas. “Ooh I love the smell of gas!” Gabby said... three times. Actually four, because she said it again as we were pulling into the parking lot of the scooter shop. “I just love the way it smells!” We pulled into the parking lot and I immediately felt I had made a mistake. The scooter shop was in a bad part of town - right by the airport. It was dark, it was late, and I had a bad feeling. Bob helped me unload the scooter into the parking lot. “Is the cab going to pick you up here or do you need a ride?” Bob asked. As soon as he asked the cab pulled up and I immediately felt relieved. I didn’t want to have to ride home in Bob’s van. I was tired, I was frustrated, and I wanted to go home. But first I had to figure out what to do with the scooter. As Bob started looking behind the shop to find a place to hide the scooter where it hopefully wouldn’t be stolen, I snuck over to the van and handed each one of the kids a $5 bill. “Don’t tell Bob,” I whispered. I gave Bob $30 for gas money and he and the kid’s quickly went on their way. I hid the scooter between an old RV and a semi-trailer. It was dark and out of the way so I figured it would be the safest. I wrapped the key in a piece of paper that read, “Please call me ASAP - I dropped my scooter off in the middle of the night behind your shop.” As I walked towards the cab an all black Lincoln town car pulled up. “What are you doing on my property?” an older gentleman yelled from inside the car. I quickly recognized him as the owner, whom I had dealt with before and explained the situation to him. “You need to be careful around here... walking around on people’s property you’re liable to get shot” the owner said. “I have a guard that lives on the property. He called me because he saw you walking around the property and thought you were trying to break in.” The owner parked and emerged from the car wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. “Let’s get it in the shop. We’ll take a look at it tomorrow.” He said. He was clearly annoyed and a bit startled. He took the keys and the note, locking the doors behind him and crawling back into his Lincoln. I made my way back to the cab and apologized for keeping him waiting for so long. He was smoking cigarettes and waiting patiently. He explained to me he didn’t mind waiting because he, “never got very big fares.” On the way home the cab driver, a young man about my age named Ryan and I talked about the situation with my scooter, his own Italian scooter which he had bought recently, and his new computer - an Alienware laptop that he bought because he loved to play games. I told him I worked in IT and offered to help if he ever needed it. As we got closer to my house, he became excited and said, “I live right by here!” Eventually I found out that not only did he live in the same part of town as me, he lived in the same neighborhood as me, on the same street - about 10 houses down. As we pulled up to my house he thanked me for the fare, I tipped him $10 and I thanked him for the ride and for patiently waiting for so long. As I opened the door to get out of the cab he turned to me and said, “Just one question!” “Sure, what’s up?” I asked. “Why did they get rid of the start menu in Windows 8?” he asked.