Boot scooter boogie

I first noticed them about a month ago. In fact, the first one I saw was on my morning walk, parked outside of a home down the block. It was an electric scooter. My first thought was that the owner shouldn't have left it just sitting there. It would be too easily stolen. You know, an old guy thought.

Yet apparently it was meant to sit there as the (as it turned out) renter was finished with it. It was a Bird scooter, intended as a cheap means of transport for getting somewhere 'too close to drive but too far to walk'.

They're all over Detroit now. I've since several times seen users scooting up and down the local streets. I saw five parked (I guess you'd say parked) around the neighborhood this morning. You load an app on your phone, agree to pay the charges, scan the app against the scooter nearest you (the app tells you where they are) then hop on and pretend you're a kid again, tooling around until you're done. Then you leave it wherever you happen to be, for the next user. The company somehow tracks them, so they can be gathered for recharge as needed.

It all strikes me as rather bizarre. There's nothing in world wrong with them of course. If they're useful or even simply enjoyable as recreation, okay. Still, it does illustrate to me how behind the technological times I am. I shake my head at the idea even as I write this little passage. To just pick something up that isn't yours and set it aside anywhere at all when done, well, yes. It strikes me as bizarre.

But if that's your pleasure, so be it. I might actually try it myself one day, once the novelty wears off. After all, you can't stay behind the technological times to do something when it's still trendy.