"I Hate You."

by rob sandusky

I own and regularly use a scooter. I've had it since December of '99 when I was looking for a way to make it to the train station without having to leave my house 30 minutes before the train did. I happened to see an ad for one at Sharper Image (one of those catalogs that sit on the back of the commode that I occasionally open).

Good solution to my problem I thought. It folds up, so I can take it on the train . Rollerskates didn't work because by the time you put them on and take them off, you've lost any time gained during the ride to the station. The scooter is light, easy to carry. It's inexpensive, about $100. It's powered by my foot, so it doesn't burn gas and pollute the air. It means that I can now commute without the car (saving my sanity and wallet). Overall a good solution.

Fast-forward six months.

Everyone has scooters. I'm no longer an "early adopter" but "one of the crowd". Great. I don't mind. All of these people with scooters are not in their cars creating traffic, getting angry and polluting the air. Kumbaya.

The media gets a hold of the story. "Thousands of 'dot.commers' are switching to the scooter as their main mode of transportation", the radio story leads off. Now the problem begins.

Yes I do work for a dot.com company, the same one that I joined up with in 1995 when the Web was new and http://www.marketyourcraphere.com didn't appear on every billboard, television ad, article of clothing and cat food label on the planet. I am not a millionaire, far from it. I worked myself up through the ranks of my company, through hard work, long days and diligence, to arrive at a stock price that hovers at one-fifty…that's $1. Not the "dot.commer" that the media had in mind no doubt. Yet because I ride a scooter and work at a "dot.com" company, I'm labeled, categorized and derided as a "dot.commie", and I am now a target of hate.

I live in a bad area of town. I've been here for 8 years and never had any problems. The rent was good when I moved in and when an opportunity to buy my place at a discount came up, I pinched pennies for six months to pay part of a down payment on the place. The neighborhood is a creative one, but also filled with vagrants, homeless, drug pushers and users, prostitutes and now, dot.commers.

New to my neighborhood is a fellow who I have never met, who doesn't know me except for the fact that he has seen me as I commute to the train on my scooter. He apparently hates scooters. He has audibly told me so several times starting last Friday. As I was riding down the sidewalk, this fellow decided to mutter under his breath but clearly audibly enough, and intended for me to hear that he, "…hates those things". I'm assuming that he is referring to the scooter.  I've never met him before so what about my character could he hate and be commenting on?

I didn't think much of it, except that I really hadn't asked his opinion, but that's the down side of freedom of speech. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. I don't even know this person, but apparently he feels he knows me well enough to share with me his hatred for scooters. Somehow I don't feel at all honored by his confiding in me.

Ironically, he closely resembles the prototypical "dot.commer": khaki pants, sneakers, sunglasses and one of those cloth baseball caps that the frat boys wear in bars (usually backwards). He was sporting a three-day growth of beard and carried an over-the-shoulder satchel, very "dot.com". Kind of ironic that he hates scooters so much. I would expect to see him riding one himself if the stereotype fit. But I guess that's the danger of labeling and categorizing people based on your perceptions of them; you're most likely wrong.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I'm on the scooter again, headed for the train station. Mr. "I hate those things" decides to take up on the sidewalk along my route. Apparently he is a vagrant. This time as I pass by on the street (he and some vagrant buddies that he hangs out with are blocking the sidewalk). I'm forced to swerve to avoid hitting a large bottle in a paper bag that he has just thrown at me. Had I not swerved to miss it, chances are good that I would end up bleeding on the pavement because of his random act of violence against me.

Because I ride a scooter.

This morning, more epithets from the scooter-hater, letting me know that he hates scooters.

Before scooter-hater decided to take up the pastime of intimidating and attacking me (someone he has never met) as I try to get to work, I was a pretty mellow, happy, respectful person. I obey the laws, I pay my taxes, I work two jobs, I help people when I can and I try to leave things a little better than when I found them. I generally believed in people, that we're on this planet together and we should look out for one another and try to get through as best we can. You might think that's a lot of bullshit that I made up to make you feel sorry for me.

Well, now I too think it is bullshit.

I am learning to hate, and after a few short days, I'm starting to get good at it. It bothers me to hate someone. It bothers me more that this person is out on the street, the street in my neighborhood, and maybe in yours,  and he feels that it is his privilege to attack whomever he chooses because of some sick seed in his demented brain.

Does this make sense to you?

Unfortunately, it is making a whole lot of sense to me. I now see how people hate. A random act of violence, however benign you may think it is…a bottle thrown at a passer by for example, turns into the seed of seething rage and hate.

Scooter-hater, I hope you rot in eternal hell, you and every single mal-adjusted hating soul like you.

And now I can expect to meet you there, because I hate you too.

Copyright © 2000 Rob Sandusky. All Rights Reserved.

Rob Sandusky rides a scooter. He's mad at the guy who got mad at him.