I’ve had Lola for almost three years, and I’ve always wondered what would happen if I dropped her. Lola is a masterful feat of Italian designed (and likely Chinese built) ingenuity, and a lot of her price tag came from the fact that she’s mostly made of actual metal. In contrast, both Oscar and Sally were 95% plastic and if (when) I dropped them, I could easily wrestle the scooter upright again. Lola is in another class altogether, and I worried that should she fall over I’d be unable to pick her up.

Turns out my fears were entirely grounded in reality: Lola weighs a million pounds (okay, 350 pounds) and I absolutely can’t get her into an upright position on my own. However, I also now know what would happen if I dropped her: a big burly man with a big burly moustache would step out of his big burly pickup truck to help me pick Lola up!

I dropped Lola today, for the first time ever. I am seriously bummed out about it, because she was pristine before this afternoon and now she has ugly scratches on her right side. I know things could have easily been a lot worse, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to curse my own stupidity (more on that in a second) and feel sorry for myself (and Lola).

I’m also likely going to be really fucking sore tomorrow.

See, I didn’t so much as drop Lola as I did completely fall off of her. Luckily, I wasn’t moving at the time (my relationship with gravity is an abusive one at best) and the damage is relatively minor; confined to her lower side bumper (and on the only piece of her body made out of plastic). I also made it 32 months with the Vespa before I had an incident – my first crash on Sally happened 13 months in (wet leaves), and I banged up Oscar but good on Day 6 (tipped over trying to turn around on a hill, slid down it). Getting a little banged up in almost inevitable, and I should be at least pleased that it was an incredibly minor event that didn’t hurt all that much. And I will be, later. Right now: pouting. Lots and lots of pouting.

So, what caused the fall? Nothing major: just my being really, really stupid and cocky and bad with measurements – you know, the usual.

Most of the time, I’m smart. I’ve finally learned to acknowledge that what I usually dismiss as “I just have a way with xyz” is actually some pretty serious intelligence on my part, and the reason I pick things up a lot faster than those around me. It’s a nice feeling; admitting something good about yourself – I’ve never really done it before, out of fear of seeming egotistical or in love with myself.

Of course, there’s another side to my smarts that quickly quashes any sort of ego that might arise: the side that does things so incredibly stupid that you wonder how I manage to get from A to B without a government-appointed handler.

See if you can spot the problem here:

big mirror is really, really big

no worries, i'll just turn it sideways!

It was a gorgeous afternoon, so I hopped on Lola and went for a ride. I decided to go to Ikea so I could pick up the mirror I wanted for my Lady Cave – I knew it was pretty big, but I was confident it would fit. After all, I’ve ridden home with lamps, moving boxes, 40lb bags of cat food – how hard could it be? I enjoyed a glorious ride out to Coquitlam, had some meatballs for lunch, then bought my mirror. Hooray!

Then I ran into a problem.

I knew the mirror was a hair under three feet high, but for some reason (possibly sheer stubbornness) decided to ignore my limitations and charge forward. I had no rope, no bungee cords, and nothing big enough to make this work – there was nothing to do but try. What’s the worst that could happen?

Well, I could fall off the damn scooter, for one.

The entire time I was trying to make this work, the aforementioned big burly man was watching me from the bumper of his truck and laughing. It really, really didn’t help matters that he was wearing a Harley Davidson shirt and biker boots, meaning he was either a poser or far more likely, a biker who would never do something so stupid. Still, he did give me a hand when I fell off Lola. After he drove off, I inspected the damage:

:(

Shiiiiiit. I had fucked up my scooter, leaked a bunch of fluid, and I STILL don’t know how I’m going to get home. I didn’t want to call for help (because that would have been the smart thing to do), so I went ahead with plan C: removing the packaging to see if the mirror would fit sideways in the bag:

take THAT, laws of time and space

I rode home like this; a precarious and ridiculous sight all the way down Lougheed. I made it back in one piece, and so did the mirror. It took some bumps and bruises to get here, but I triumphed over my own stupidity .. and now I have a giant mirror for my Lady Cave. Success! Sort of. My foot hurts, where I landed on it.

It’s a good thing I’m pretty.