Almost every day, now, I see people flying up West Bay Road on those electric Bird scooters, wind in their hair as they zoom effortlessly towards their destination.
I have yet to try one of them, even though I’ve been very tempted. I just have visions of it being like when I attempted rollerblading along the pavement by the open road, and realised I had the balance of a one-legged elephant standing on a football. It was a miracle I didn’t go careening into traffic that day. My natural elegance aside, I’m also pretty sure those things have a weight limit, which takes me back to the only time I rode one of their brethren. It didn’t fill me with confidence.
“Why Vicki, what happened?” you might ask.
Well, I’ll tell you.
A friend of mine was working at the Wyndham Reef, and as he had no car, he had to cycle there every day. It was a distance from his house, so by the time he arrived at the resort, he was winded and hot. Being the kind of person who would never wish to cycle any distance, I could understand his plight. This was in the days before Bird arrived on the island, but there were already scooters in private hands and people were using them to conveniently travel short distances.
Without telling him I was doing so, I began to scour the pages of Ecay to see if anything was up for sale. It took a few weeks, but one day, there it was – a secondhand electric scooter that even had a seat. I’d hit the jackpot!
I got on the blower, and a nice young man answered. Was the scooter still available?, I asked. Yes, and I could come by that night to see it, once he got home from work.
This was awesome – I could go there, test it out, and if it worked, my friend could be boot-scootin’-boogieing along the road by the next day. I’d gift it to him.
It wasn’t until 9pm that I got the call from the seller to say that he was available, and by the time I reached his house on a dark lane off Walkers Road, it was 9:30pm. He brought it out of his house, and as I got out of my car, he upped-and-downed me, then looked back at his scooter. Clearly I’d had the voice of a slimmer woman on the phone.
“Hi!” I said, with enthusiasm. “So, this is the beast, eh?”
“Um… yes ma’am,” he mumbled, clearly doubtful about how the physics of this was going to work.
“Okay, well how do I operate it?” I asked, pretending not to notice his hesitation.
Resigning himself to the fact he was in it now, his 120-pound frame proceeded to demonstrate. He sat on something that resembled a bicycle seat, atop a post attached to the scooter frame, and switched the power on.
“You can use the seat,” he said, “or stand on it – it’s up to you.”
As soon as he pressed the accelerator, it was off, smoothly zipping up to the top of his street and back. This was perfect.
“Now you try,” he said, dismounting and indicating that I should take the handles.
I sat down, and immediately the small seat was enveloped in posterior. The power was still on, so all I had to do was engage the accelerator.
I pressed it, and nothing happened.
“Is the brake on?” I asked, looking around.
“No, ma’am,” he said, staring. “Give it a minute.”
I would say it was about 10 seconds before the wheels started moving. If the scooter could have groaned, it would have. It was gathering speed, if I can use the word, but not in the rocket-like manner I had previously witnessed. As my steed and I approached the very slightest incline, it slowed again, but didn’t ever come to a complete stop. After I turned around, the journey back to the owner was slightly faster, as I was going about as downhill as one can on an island as flat as a billiard table.
I don’t know if it was embarrassment, or the fact that this man clearly didn’t think I’d be buying the scooter after that – so I wanted to prove him wrong – but I heard “I’ll take it!” coming out of my mouth. I don’t know what I was thinking, as my friend was fairly generously proportioned as well, but I figured he weighed less than I did, so this could probably all still work out.
The next day, I rocked up to the resort and presented him with the scooter. He was thrilled and was so grateful; I walked away from there feeling very proud of myself and my thoughtfulness.
It was about a week later when I was heading up to that area, and I just happened to spy him making his way along the road… on his bike. He saw me, too; quickly scouted the area to see if there was an escape route; and then gave up as I pulled alongside him to ask where the scooter was.
Turned out it had only moved mildly faster in his possession, and the first day he used it, he was about 30 minutes late to work. The next day, he left home earlier, but all it took was a headwind and he still ended up getting in late. On the third day, he pulled the bike back out. I couldn’t blame him.
He returned the scooter to me, and I eventually gave it to a teenager. I don’t know if it’s still on the road.
Maybe one of these days I’ll try a Bird scooter. I drive past them all the time – there are loads in my neighbourhood, and I’ve already downloaded the app. Or maybe I’ll just accept that, like the rollerblades, they aren‘t for me.
If you see someone on two wheels being overtaken by snails, you’ll know the decision I made.
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