October 29, 2003:

Have you seen the tee-vee ads for "The Scooter"? It's a motorized wheelchair. While the voice-overs are explaining how they'll contact Medicare for you, blah blah blah, snippets of scenes are shown, designed to entice you into wanting one.

One scene shows an older woman sitting in her SCOOTER, just spinning in circles...one wheel is braked, and she's corkscrewing away. Next to her is a little girl, up on her toes, arms extended over her head. She too is twirling. Grandma is teaching her BALLET! Thank God for her SCOOTER! The SCOOTER brought them close! (Closing scene: Grand Daughter won a ballet contest (?), and hugs Grandma, in her SCOOTER, on stage, to thank her for all the rigorous help & inspiration.)

"Grandma had to replace her left-side SCOOTER tire 3 TIMES during those grueling hours of practice! Thank you Grandma!"

Another scene shows an older man sitting in his SCOOTER, laughing like crazy, as he chases a young boy down the aisle of a retail store. The boy is racing ahead in his peddle car. The old man is hot on his tail. Are they having a big-fun race? Will this young boy wake up screaming for the rest of his life? Thank God for THE SCOOTER! SCOOTER has brought them speed, adventure, excitement, pedestrian targets, aisles full of crashing stuff!

"Ed, I'm sorry, but we're gonna have to let you go. I KNOW you're on a fixed income, but that chase incident yesterday back in 'Housewares' was just the final straw. We're looking at a law suit from the kid's parents. They say he's been traumatized by you & that g.d. 'Scooter'".

a) WANT a wheel chair? NO ONE WANTS a wheel chair. NEED one? Yes. But, don't insult people with dumb-ass scenarios. Not being able to walk is bad enough. I hate the SCOOTER people................ Okay, I "really dislike" them.

b) If that little girl can learn ballet from her corkscrewy Grandma, I should be able to teach driving - by parking my ass in the sidewalk chair out front of FUTURES.

c) If crazy old Scooter Man comes rocketing into MY store - chasing a little boy or not - I'll clip his pin-head with a designer fry pan, and scoot his wacky ass right back out - into traffic.

Yer damn skippy!