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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Don't Call it a Moped!


I think a 5th grade kid just made fun of me. I'm scooting along on my Genuine Buddy scooter, a 125cc 4 stroke engine with tons of torque and a top speed of 65 mph. I stop at the light and a school bus - a big yellow school bus - pulls next to me and some fat kid opens the window and says "I like your moped".

Was he mocking me?

Did he really like it, or was he messing with me? I wanted to shout "hey you stupid punk kid, a moped is a bicycle with a tiny little engine, you pedal it to make it go faster, a scooter is like a real motorcycle, shut the hell up!" Instead, like a goofball, I waved to him. Did he just smirk at me? Whaaa?

The light turned green and I went WOT ("wide open throttle" for you non-biker types) and speed off like a Prius with a stuck accelerator. I showed him! This ain't no moped, this is a scooter, a "scoot" for short. Nerds ride mopeds, cool dudes ride scooters... right? Right?

Is there a lesson to this story? Yes - never ever call a scooter a "moped". That aint right.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Dude, he said he liked it!

Don't get hung up about a 10-year-old not knowing the proper term for a specific class of vehicle that he isn't allowed to ride. Whether it's called a "motorscooter" or a "moped" or a "motorcycle" or a "vespa" or even a "bike"... doesn't matter. He said he liked it! :)

Local Wally said...

Of course!

Anonymous said...

It happened to me, but the boy had Down Syndrome so he was excused .I gently explained and he went away.. I looked around and mounted the ”moped“ riding into the blushing sunset. A little ashamed of my scooter.

Unknown said...

mopeds are cooler my tomos targa lx goes 65 miles an hour