Buzzing the neighbors

MiniMe has been practically assaulting the UPS man this week. While I may love a man in uniform, her reason for giving the man in the big brown truck extra attention is that she ordered something online and is more than anxiously awaiting its delivery.

She saved the money she got from grandparents and great grandparents and used it to purchase an electric Razor scooter. I knew she wanted one, but I had a problem with buying her a scooter that did all the work for her when she has a perfectly good regular scooter and a new bicycle that she hardly ever rides. But it is her money and if she wanted to blow it all on what was apparently the most popular item for adventurous kids between the ages of 8 and 12 this holiday season, who am I to stop her?

I checked every store in the two-county area online and by phone and no one had a single one of these scooters in stock after Christmas - not even a scratched and dinged floor model. In fact, the over-tired customer service reps that answered my calls all laughed when I asked.

So now that it has been ordered and we've gotten notice that it has shipped, MiniMe practically launches herself into the truck of all delivery men and women who enter our neighborhood looking for the anticipated Razor scooter. My neighbors will not know what hit them when this scooter finally arrives and MiniMe goes zooming all over the neighborhood like a white-blond-and-freckled-bat-out-of-hell.

While we didn't have electric scooters when I was a kid, my dad made sure my sister and I had a chance to aggravate the hell out of our neighbors. He built us a two-seater go-kart with a 4 horsepower engine. The thing probably sounded like a lawnmower on steroids, but we thought it sounded like a whole lot of fun! While the go-kart did have a roll bar, it had no seat belts and we wore no helmets. Those were the good old days when kids were bulletproof and parents were more relaxed. I think my sister and I with that go-kart were probably responsible for the early loss of hearing of many of our senior neighbors. Well that and the fact that my dad had a rail dragster that he used to run up and down the road for practice. I bet we had more than a few neighbors who would have paid for us to move!