Earth Mother

Earth Mother

Monday, August 31, 2009

Word Challenge and Vespa Madness



At the bottom of the page here, it shows you "labels for this post: e.g. scooters, vacation, fall." Since I rarely enter any "labels for this post" I wondered, casually, if I could appropriate the explainers, "scooters, vacation, fall" with a true story. I found I could. I bought myself a scooter after seeing the deathmatch that is scooters on the streets of any sized Italian city. The mighty Vespa rules the road and since Italians simply ignore those silly signal lights, you and your Vespa might be run down in any given moment. Part of the appeal was seeing all those curvy, stylish Italian women dashing around wearing dresses, hair contained--not by some ugly helmet, but by long silk scarves, billowing in the warm Italian breeze.

The scooter pictured here is not mine but one rather carefully restored and painted blue and white and very valuable. Mine was used and had been painted a bright yellow color. When I asked about the yellow (not my favorite color) the seller said it made the scooter more visible on the road. Sold. I certainly hoped it would help me be seen on American roads unused to wannabe Italian women in scarves. But after one near miss by a large truck that nearly sent me into a ditch, I decided not even the bright yellow would save me twice. So I sold my scooter. If I had kept it, I could sell it now on eBay for enough to take another vacation to Italy and watch the authentic Scooter traffic dance. Alas, not this Fall. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

No comments:

Post a Comment