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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.
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