What Brown Does for Me
July 27, 2008
Aside from bringing innumerable treats around April and December, the UPS truck also drops off neat little packages throughout the year.
Today, the UPS truck (really the driver, not the truck) dropped a little package for my scooter at the house. Again, not really for the scooter – but it was something to keep my scooter in good shape. And if the scooter had a soul it would probably feel something positive about my purchase.
You might have realized from the number of scooter posts around Bowl of Cheese and Jeff Cutler dot com, I’ve been enjoying this new mode of transportation a lot. This doesn’t mean that it makes sense for everyone to hop on a scooter and dash about town.
If you’re carrying kids or dogs or packages bigger than a bag of marshmallows around, a scooter might not be for you. It doesn’t mean that you should get a Ford Excursion and drive it while talking on the phone, slapping the kids, applying make-up and drinking a caramel Machiatto – but I digress.
These scooter posts have been prominent because I’m on this sabbatical and have been exploring different ways to remain focused on writing NOT RIDING and visiting different venues to spark my imagination has helped.
But today, the subject matter just fell at my feet. Here’s the photo-essay of the treat from Scooterworks. Try not to get too excited.
I heard the rumble of the truck and dashed to the door. No cap or nightshirt required. It’s summer here in the Northeast, so don’t get all riled up about Ma in her kerchief, etc. etc. When I flung open the sash…errr, door, the truck had gone and what remained behind was glorious.
Not the scooter in the yard, but the box on the top step. I saw the tape and the Scooterworks logo and new some new supplies had arrived. What clued me in was the tracking number at UPS.com had shown delivered a few seconds before my mad dash to the door.
I smiled at Scootle (that’s the scooter’s name) and picked up the package.
Settle down, the climax and the denouement are coming. But you can’t get to the end of a story without reading the middle. Unless you like to jump 186 pages ahead and ruin the surprise. Don’t get me started on magazines that cover certain cycling events and give a daily email with the result right in the subject line!
I am so angry at Bicycling Magazine right now. Whoops, gave that away. Well, they’re stupidly sending out emails with critical info in the subject line. There are some very odd people in the cycling world, and some of them like to wait until the Tour de France is complete before watching the whole race end-to-end on Tivo.
Bicycling’s efforts have smashed this practice for many this year and may have lost it a bunch of subscribers. But that’s enough ranting. Back to the story at hand…
Looking around, I spy the perfect box-opening tools. No, not the nacho chips. I’m talking about the knives that are sticking into Stabby. Now to attack the box.
Once inside, I look at the treasure…
As usual, Scooterworks has packed up their goodies with some candy, a complete invoice and generous plastic for the environment.
The two things that struck me were how the folks at Scooterworks knew I liked red-hots and how tiny those oil filters are. That’s right. There are THREE full-size (scooter-size) oil filters in that bag. They’re about the size of Italian Ices.
That’s my brown story for the day. Now I better get back to recording my Ethicist questions or Randy Cohen will be angry.
Keep reading!
