A couple months ago Laura and I saw a guy on a scooter as I was coming home from work. As we blew past him I thought it was kind of funny, mostly thinking how silly it would be to go so slowly – not to mention he looked ridiculous.
As we approached the first stop light, the guy comes up behind us in the bike lane and blows past us! At that point I pretty much did a mental 180. “If I had a scooter, how much longer would it take to get home really?” “Don’t those things get like 100 miles to the gallon?” Needless to say, we decided to get a scooter.
After thinking about it and talking about it for a little while, Laura’s parents made a very kind offer to provide us with some cash to purchase a scooter. They told us that unfortunately they could only afford to give us $600(that’s a hell of a lot of money to us btw) and suggested finding other donors for the cause. Well, we don’t really know any more people as nice as them – so we started looking for a $600 scooter! After much craigslisting, deliberating, agonizing, etc – we did decide that we’d probably save around $150 bucks in just the first month for gas(we were using a helluva lot of gas going back and forth to work 2x a day with our car) – so we thought we could probably spend $750 for the new scoot.
We ended up finding out on payday that the Jefferson City Hy-Vee was selling Chinese scooters for $699… Hoo-Ha, we went down and picked one up. $749.50 after tax! They even delivered it for free!
We were very excited:
So yeah, my thinking has changed a lot since we saw that first ridiculous looking guy on his scooter.
About going slow – It takes the roughly the same amount of time to get to work, depending on traffic it’s sometimes quicker on the scooter. Going other places in town is often faster on the scoot for various reasons, like parking and traffic – though even if it is slower, its not by much…perhaps 2-3 minutes…and it’s way more fun!
About his ridiculous looks, well… I’m an asshole. I may look ridiculous myself but I’m spending $20 a month on gas instead of $200. When you think about that in terms of carbon emissions, it’s a little more clear that worrying about how you look is really dumb and not socially responsible at all. Besides, I look hella cool ;)
Thanks Larry and Judy!
Larry and Judy,
What is the brand of scooter you purchased at HyVee and have you had good luck with it so far. I’ve been reading some reviews about some Chinese scooter and I’ve love to know more about the scooter you purchased. My parents are thinking of buying one of the HyVee scooters and any info you can provide would be appreciated. Thanks.