Poor transportation

I have the strangest neighbors. I was coming back from my mailbox this afternoon when some guy proudly totes his new trophy out of his apartment... a sad-looking bicycle that vaguely resembled a Harley, only made out of gold-plated parts that were so loose that the entire contraption rattled and clanked up a storm as he trotted it down the sidewalk to the parking lot. Even more sad was his appearance, clothed in what looked like someone else's disposed clothing full of holes and stains, as if he spent his entire $20 a month allowance on his tarnished gold transportation and nothing else.

Shortly afterwards, the school bus made it's daily return and dropped off two high school boys that spent the better part of an hour attempting skateboarding tricks in the parking lot. The both of them had coughs that sounded as if they either had bronchitis or had smoked too much pot in their short lifetimes and cussed like sailors at every failed attempt of their skateboarding act. Sadly, this was about eighteen or nineteen out of every twenty tries... seemingly on par for the epidemic of unskilled skateboard wannabes that seem to infest the streets nowadays (honestly, when was the last time you ever saw a really good skateboarder practicing in the parking lot?).

During this little hour-long comedic show, there was also the mandatory ghetto low-rider cruising by, blaring mariachi music at ear-bleeding levels. It was an amazingly idiotic combination of shiny $1000 tires and rims with a $700 bass-focused sound system all in a beaten-up car that couldn't possibly have been worth more than a couple hundred dollars by itself. The immense amount of bass coming out of this piece of crap threatened to literally shake the car apart, but somehow it still managed to stay in one mostly-whole piece.

By the time the too-loud music had faded, along comes a girl weaving left and right through the parking lot--narrowly avoiding the skaters multiple times--on a bicycle that was too small for her. She was riding with her knees pointed 90 degrees outwards and was barely able to pedal the tiny bike under her fat ass, I was surprised she had managed to make it around the parking lot without passing out from exhaustion or giving up in frustration.

Last, but not least was the miniature red motorcycle that was apparently the center of attention of a group of kids on the other side of the complex. Each time the motorcycle made it's trip around the complex, a different rider wore a huge smile as it crawled by at a quiet 10 miles per hour. Some of the riders looked barely able to walk and some looked just as comical as the fat girl on the bicycle from earlier... since none of them were old enough to drive a car, they hadn't had the pleasurable experience of flooring the gas on a decent car and going 100+ miles an hour down the freeway, so 10 MPH must have seemed pretty fast.

This all gets summed up pretty decently in a recent Count Your Sheep comic strip. It's sad that today's society puts so much emphasis on having a car, but even more sad that our youth has to settle for poor substitutes and whatever trash they can get their hands on.

Currently listening to:
	It Dreams By Jakalope Release date: 30 November, 2004