Vespanalysis

With the recent crazy-high gas prices lately, anyone who isn't bedridden is looking for alternative ways of moving their bodies about the face of the earth.

My son, being not bedridden, is one of those people. He drives a VW Rabbit, which gets pretty fair gas mileage. And the little Rabbit logo on the back is waayy cute. But despite this, recent surges in gas prices prompted him to consider buying a Vespa scooter.

Vespa is an Italian company that's been making scooters for over 60 years. The company is named after the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who was famous for making high pitched whining sounds with his mouth as he strode about the streets of Rome. Until recently, you may not have seen or noticed these scooters on our streets here in the U.S. That's because until the Bush administration, we have favored large vehicles, with four wheels, and scooter-sized fuel tanks that produce a constant sucking sound you can actually hear if you stand close enough.

Living in Austin, and often driving in the more urban parts of the city, I've seen an increase in the number of people riding scooters. However, until recently, the only place I could recall seeing Vespas was in romantic comedy films. Think back, and you'll realize that in almost every romantic comedy of the last 50 years, there is at least one scene with the couple in love, tooling about the streets of Paris, New York, London, Rome, or Antwerp*. This is because the Vespa company actually had a contract with Hollywood that required every major studio to include at least one "scooter" scene in every romantic comedy. Apparently the contract ran out in the late 80's, when all romantic comedies where then required to include either Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts.

Taking a closer look at the Vespa scooter, you'll see that it's not a bad looking vehicle. They have two wheels, a seat, handlebars - and where you'd expect to see an engine on a motorcycle, on the scooter there's just a big empty space. That explains the exceptional gas mileage. If you ride a motorcycle, you're immediately pegged as being a reckless, risk-taking, irresponsible asswipe**. With the Vespa, you're just a hip guy/gal who's concerned about carbon footprints and traffic congestion. Vespas are somewhat limited in that they are not as fast as motorcycles, but this decreases the chances that you'll have doctors in the emergency room trying to decide what your Glasgow Coma Scale is. ***

No, Vespas aren't for everyone. Women can ride them, comfortable knowing that they look cute, whimsical, charming, socially conscious, or all of the above. My son is 20 years old, 6'4", with tattoos, and girls think he's cute. He could easily pull off the scooter-riding thing. I'm 46 and losing my hair. You'd see me on a scooter and think "Poor loser. Got his house foreclosed and his car repo'd". So, check with your local Vespa dealer to see if one is right for you. If you step into the dealership, and the first thing you see is a salesman looking at you, frowning and slowing shaking his head at you, just quietly turn around and walk back to your Lexus.

Diesel runs thing over at Humor-blogs, but we've heard rumors that his previous nickname was "scooter".

* This is really the name of a city in Europe. Crazy.

** Please, no comments from bikers. That's not me saying that. It's the 70 year old woman with huge glasses driving the Buick LeSabre

*** As I'm writing this, my Glasgow Coma Scale is 12