Faster, harder, Scooter!!

Z posted a message to the Yahoo!group he belongs to of Buffalo-area scooterists that had the subject line "Wooooooooooooooo" and the body of the message consisted simply of more "oooooo"s and eventually some exclamation marks.

I had a bit of a rocky day yesterday,( and if you want to know the shittiness, read this. Otherwise skip to the happy ending instead. )

"Can't I even just sit on the scooter for a minute after all I went through to get it?"
Z paused a moment, and looked a bit surprised. "Oh," he said. "Of course. Hey, I'll take you for a spin around the block." (We live on a street that is anything but busy, at 9:00 at night.)
I figured it would be shallow of me to brighten immediately at the prospect, but I dried my tears and went and got my jeans and boots on, and my helmet. "Can we go get ice cream?" I said, but then was gloomy again: "Well, but it's dark."
"They're all back roads," Z said, "with street lights. Come on!"
Getting the scooter out past the car was a bit of an ordeal but an amusing one. (Parking a Stella, which is wide and heavy in relation to its two little wheels, has been likened to "slow-dancing with a fat chick" and really, it's an apt simile.) So he showed me how to start the scooter, and where all the switches and buttons were, and I sat behind him and we drove to Anderson's, and their flavor of the day was black raspberry which is the third-best one (hey, third out of like twelve isn't bad), and while we sat there no less than three guys ogled the scooter intensively, including one whose wife stopped us as we were leaving and went to get her husband who left his place at the ordering window to come and ask us what it was and where we'd gotten it, because he'd had a Vespa he'd loved twenty years ago and he'd been wanting and wanting to get another one, and Z scribbled the guy he'd bought it from's contact info on a piece of paper* for the fellow, and then we rode off into the night by far the coolest people at the ice cream shop, followed by the lustful gazes of half a dozen men there with children in strollers or on tricycles. (One little girl had a scooter of the sort that you push with your foot. She was most exceedingly jealous of us.)

And it was a lot of fun, and now I can't really remember why my cellphone is missing under my bed, which is probably for the best. Yes, I am very shallow, but dammit, I went through a lot of hassle and stress to get that stupid thing and I think I was justified at being upset at not even getting to see it.

__________________
*Percy, get business cards.

scooter photos!

I remain conflicted over whether I'm smug that I'm better than Z at driving the scooter, or disappointed that Z's not better than me at driving it. I've driven standard for fifteen or so years now, so it's not really surprising that I have less trouble with the clutch. Not to say I don't-- I do. The handle's too big for my hand, and it's a big strain on my wrist/forearm to operate the clutch. It does help that I'm left-handed, though, I think.
The accelerator's awful touchy, and it's way hard to keep the thing upright. Someone on the Yahoo! group said parking a Stella was like slow-dancing with a fat chick. I would disagree. Handling the thing when it's not moving under its own steam is rather like attempting to get a really drunk passing-out fat chick through a doorway-- she's heavy, ungainly, a bit floppy, and likes to roll in directions you hadn't anticipated and weren't intending.
It's rather exhausting.

I had a lot of fun, though, driving around the parking lot. By the end of it I think I was better than Z. I got to drive home. An observation, though-- I think I make a better passenger than he does. I'm not smaller, but my feet sure are. his feet are too big, and he likes to lean forward, which means he knocks my helmet with his visor. Which I really don't need.

I have photos, which I've put up at Flickr for the moment, including Z driving the scooter, and of course the obligatory bathroom-mirror photo of me with a Ukranian Power Braid!-- much thanks to gyen_gaoltosing for the insight into how to do one. It's been my hairstyle of choice lately because it's "up" but I can take it down to wear the helmet should an opportunity arise.
And of course:

That's me driving the scooter!

Later when I am not so sleepy I shall update that link to go to a set or something of just the scooter photos-- but I am most terrible sleepy at the moment.