Thoughts of an electric longboarder

Saturday morning. Time for my morning writing session at Starbucks. To be a complete hipster, and since the Starbucks is only a couple of miles away, I don’t take my car. I reach for my electric skateboard. But do I reach for the Boosted Board, or for the Evolve All Terrain?

In this situation, there’s no hesitation. I reach for the Evolve. It’s a real door-to-door board, as opposed to my last mile vehicle. Meaning, if I don’t have to throw it in a car, take it on a bus or train, the Evolve board’s size becomes an advantage. There are no hills on the way to Starbucks, but the surface is complete garbage. On my Evolve, I can ride over the worst sidewalk with the impunity of a bicycle.

But this morning, a bonus treat. Blocking my way on the sidewalk was a father and his two sons. Both sons had skateboards. The surface was so bad, one of the sons simply carried his board. It gave me the opportunity to use my go-to line, “Excuse me, pardon me. Can I pass?”

Then I watched their drooling faces as they saw what the coolest kid in the neighborhood was riding. When I looked over my shoulder down the road, I saw them going into the pawn shop. Poor kids won’t be riding an electric anytime soon.

***

At work, I went to sign out. Sunglasses on, Boosted in hand, I entered the room where our supervisors are.

The new girl was there, the hot one. She looked at me and said, “Look at you, the cool guy. With your cool guy hair, and your cool guy sunglasses, and your cool guy skateboard.”

This is how people see me now. But the funny thing is, I had the hair and the sunglasses before. But nobody called me the cool guy before. Somehow the longboard is what really pulls everything together. Thank you Boosted, and thank you Evolve.

***

Riding home from work. Just past the student rec center, there’s a downhill by the volleyball courts. It’s a game day weekend, so the street is clogged with cars. I’m skating past them all on the sidewalk. My Boosted Board lets me take the downhill slow enough to check out the volleyball girls. When I pass them, I release the brakes.

Then an RV turns right -- in front of me.

I hit the brake button. I roll the wheel back slightly, and come to a complete stop on the hill. I shake my finger at the RV, he probably can’t even see me. When he’s clear, I skate on.

Had that happened with an orthodox board, I would have had to jump off, and likely the board would have gone flying, maybe even run over.

Had that happened with an Evolve board, I would have been able to slow down enough to hop off and retain control of the board.