It’s one of my bucket list things and I know for certain when, where, and why I decided to put it on the list.
It was back when I was 15, a couple months shy of 16. My sister would have been somewhere close to 17.5 at the time. We were at one of our favourite places growing up, Roche Harbor, with my mom and step dad on a bit of a vacation. We’d been staying in one of the historic rental cottages on the hill overlooking the marina. As younger kids we spent a lot of time there on my dad’s sailboat so going there and being on land was novel.
(By land or sea, if you ever get a chance to go, check out Afterglow Vista, the McMillin Mausoleum. It’s so eerily cool).
Oops. I got sidetracked there for a second.
Because of our 18-month age difference, one day my sister and my step dad were able to rent scooters and tool around San Juan Island while me, the younger sister, had to stay back.
Needless to say I was choked. The little sister never gets to do any of the cool stuff, am I right?
Right then and there I decided one day I would have a scooter of my own. That’d show her! (Not like she could control our birth order, mind you. But I needed somebody to be mad at.)
It took about 15 years but I think it was on my 30th birthday when my dad pulled up in his pickup truck at the Citizen’s old office on Jubilee Street with a shiny red scooter in the back. Just. For. Me.
Suck it, sister. Enjoy your minivan! (Her minivan is actually fantastic. So practical and drives really well.)
The arrival of my scooter was a number of years ago now. More than I care to count. And I used it quite a bit early on. But foul weather, two pregnancies, and then the guilt (and impracticality) of having two small children at home have kept it parked.
Until now.
I re-insured The Scoot for the season and I’m so excited. It’s been two and a half years since I was able to ride it. I changed the oil and got it started with relative ease.
Sure my sister’s minivan has automatic everything and a sunroof but Scoot Scoot has a cup holder for my Slurpee.
Not only did I get the last laugh with the scooter later in our lives, but that week at Roche Harbor I got the last laugh, too.
My mom and I had long gone to bed and my sister and step dad stayed up late to watch the Perseid meteor shower.
They were laying on blankets and eating some snacks out on the hill out in front of the cabin while looking up at the amazing light show in the sky when they heard a rustle in the bush to their right. They thought nothing of it until the sound seemed to be getting closer. All of a sudden, in the darkness of the night, a giant moose trotted out to join them, scaring the bejeasus out of them both.
That’ll teach them to go rent scooters without me….
sarah.simpson@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
