Sunday, November 14, 2010

Dashboard Confessional: Out of Order

To preface this story, I will tell you that the dashboard on my scooter recently stopped working completely.  Prior to a couple weeks ago, at least the gas meter worked, even if the speedometer and oil gauge did not.  So now I'm running totally on memory.  Recipe for disaster.

Anyway, last night Mary Ann and I went to a going away party for a couple American teachers we're friends with at a nearby bowling alley/pool hall/batting bage/arcade wonderland.  It was a pretty fun time, especially when I housed everyone at arcade-style basketball (think MA's).  Just about everywhere here is BYOB, so I was reasonably shwasted by the time we left, and by the time we left the after-party at another teacher's nearby house I was also hashed.

It was around 3:30am, just after  leaving the 24-hour McDonald's, that disaster struck.  In the middle of the empty road our scooter shuts off without even a sputter.
Mary Ann: "Greg, when was the last time you filled this thing up?".
Me: "Fuck."

We ditched the scooter and got home via cab at 4am.  Today we scouted out the most direct route to the nearest gas station and it was time for me to start a pushin'.  It's pretty hard for me to stand out more than I usually do here, being white and not a midget, but the white boy wheeling a dead scooter like a push cart was bringing the yucks today.  One of the stranger things I've had to get used to here is how Taiwanese people will just continue to stare at me even while I am staring back at them.  Cultural differences are disconcerting.

The process of getting the scooter to the gas station actually went about as smoothly as could be hoped for, although there was one scary part of the journey where I had to go through this tunnel-like underpass that reminded me of the mineshaft scenes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  Fortunately, no monkey brains were spilled en route.

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