Last week I borrowed a scooter from a friend to try out the commute and see how it went before deciding if I wanted to spend the money on one myself.

Sunday the 4th I scooted over to the Texaco in Hell and “filled up”. Grand total: $4.51 or 1.05 gallons. That filled the little tank all the way to the top. I then scooted home and left it there til Monday morning. I slept in that morning, more or less by accident and left the house at 8:05am.

I got to work at 8:25am.

Traffic was backed up to the West Bay Public Dock, but by scooting along beside it, at just 10mph, I made HELLA time. In just five minutes, I was down to Foster's West Bay. Ten minutes to Public Beach. Fifteen minutes to Safehaven/Ritz-Carlton, 20 minutes to where the Harquail Bypass comes out by the cinema and then 25 minutes til I was parking the bike and walking in the door at work on North Sound Way.

Over the next four days, as my confidence increased (and I got passed by other scooterati going twice my speed) I've shortened the trip to 20 minutes. I could go faster, but I choose not to. If I put the bike down at 25mph, chances are I'll walk away from the scene. If I put it down in traffic at 40mph, then the only likely way I'll leave the scene is in an ambulance, and that would SO suck, big-time.

This morning I stopped at Texaco and filled it up again. Gas has dropped now to 3.87/gallon so the 1.1 gallon fillup cost me $4.05. I checked the odometer and did pretty close to 120 miles. On 1.1 gallon of gas and one week of commuting. That would have cost me nearly $50 in gas in my jeep (which is only the 2.5l 4cyl engine, not the monster 6-cyl 4.0l) and taken nearly an hour each way.

Aside from the savings in fuel, and the savings in time (which I've spent getting an extra 40 or so minutes of beauty sleep) the change in my demeanor is un-measurable. Instead of rolling in to work in a bad mood, with a little black thundercloud over my head and a scowl on my face, I come in fresh-cheeked and bright-eyed and HAPPY to help people when they call with dumb questions, like if their computer is un-plugged). So far I've managed to scoot from office to office with a 15” LCD between my knees, a dot matrix printer on the floorboard and a small CPU strapped to the back of my seat, so it hasn't been too much of an inconvenience.

Now the question of buying my own. I polled my close friends via IM and email on it a couple weeks ago (before having given it a go on a borrowed bike) and got talked out of it at first, because of the high initial cash outlay and the fact that a new Vespa LX125 costs more than my jeep cost me last year and because it wasn't going to be my primary mode of transport.

I'm still not ready to sell my jeep and go scooter-only, and the LX125 is still $4000 CI, but Im approaching the “it doesn't matter” mindset now. I've already worked it out, what with interest rates and things, and it's STILL going to be cheaper to pay it off (at 13.99% credit card interest) over a year than it would be to move closer to town and end up paying $1200/month (or more) for rent.

All I've got to do now is come up with a little more $$ or talk the dealer down a little more $$ and I'll be good to go.