It’s never okay for a man to ride a scoopy

Scooters are everywhere in Bali. In front of you, beside you, behind you and occasionally on top of you. They truly are the developing world’s chariots and this island simply wouldn’t work if it weren’t for these two wheeled miracle machines.

They cost as much as a goat. Are as reliable as an ox. As fast as a horse (and not nearly as sexually confusing). And can fit a family of six on them no problem.

I’ve seen them transport 50 concrete blocks, working kitchens, highly explosive gas canisters, army dudes with guns, live stock, dead live stock, newborn babies, prostitutes, drunk Australians and other scooters. Without them, Bali would still be nothing but rice fields, smiling villagers and empty, unspoilt beaches… anyway – you get the point.

Scooters are also a brilliant way to find out if you are an idiot. Maybe you’ve been on the fence about your own idiocy. Maybe you have been thinking that you are more of a moron or maybe just a cretin.

“But if you’re a dude, DO NOT get a Scoopy. A Scoopy is a lady scooter. It’s the colour of a 5 year-old-girls birthday party and the shape of Paris Hilton’s dildo.”

Well get on a scooter and find out once and for all! These zippy little maiming machines will reveal the idiot inside you and hand the controls over to that glorious idiot almost immediately. You’ll know as they put the $1000.00 bandages on your leg and remove the Havaiana from your rectum and the shards of Bintang bottle from the thigh of your paralysed girlfriend that yes indeed – you are a full blown idiot.

You being an idiot shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the freedom of a scooter however. If you come to Bali, the first thing you should do is rent a scooter. Don’t piss about with Taxi’s – they aren’t just slow in traffic –they are the traffic. Plus you have to negotiate the whole time and nothing makes you feel like the racist you fear you might be more than arguing with a cab driver for thirty minutes over 50 cents.

Don’t walk. It’s hot. The streets are like the surface of Mercury and you’ll look like an escaped mental patient whose Thorazine is wearing off. Don’t spring for a driver and a mini van because you’re not 100 years old or a toddler in a car seat with Mommy taking your big sister to soccer practice.

Get a scooter. The scooter is the skeleton key that opens every lock to every hidden treasure chest in Bali. Get a scooter. Get free. Get exploring. Get amongst it. Get lost. Get your knees in the mothertruckin’ breeze! But if you’re a dude, DO NOT get a Scoopy. A Scoopy is a lady scooter. It’s the colour of a 5 year-old-girls birthday party and the shape of Paris Hilton’s dildo.

It’s often got the word STYLISH written on it somewhere near some sparkling decals of stars and unicorn pubes.

It was designed at girl-guide camp by some red food colouring addicted tweenagers with glitter pens, pink wool and stickers. Even if you had just come back from chopping down a forest to harvest the logs to build your own house, with a freshly killed 22 point buck strapped to on your shoulders and a woman you had just sexed with zero foreplay on the back, you would still look like a wimp. Riding the Scoopy will make your beard blow away in the wind and your testicles roll onto the road to be eaten by gay dogs. It’s that bad. It’s never okay for a man to ride a Scoopy.

Okay ‘never’? Never is a long time. Nothing is never, never. There are a couple of exceptions to this no ride rule. And here they are:

1. You are riding it to your daughter’s sweet 16 birthday party.

It’s a gift and you are taking it to her because you’re an amazing Dad and it is the perfect scooter for a 16-year-old girl. She will say, “OMG!” because it matches her shoes and clothes and is made of bubble gum and strawberry flatulence.

2. You are on your way to your sexual realignment surgery.

You are man who is about to become a woman by having your penis turned into a vagina and some boobs glued to your chest and you need a way to get home because your family told you they won’t be there to pick you up and your mother can’t stop crying and drinking gin. So even though you are riding the Scoopy to the hospital as a man, you are returning home as a woman – which is only 50% wrong.

3. You are a stuntman in the new Charlie’s Angels film, which is set in Bali

You are riding the Scoopy because it’s your job and you’re about to do something very high speed, high risk and high testosterone involving jumping over or sliding under a truck filled with chickens or trafficked child slaves. The Scoopy will be wrecked by this stunt and melted down and turned into a Barbie doll’s shoes and accessories.

4. You are confiscating it from a male friend

You are doing the decent thing and you have put on a balaclava and grabbed a bat and you have clubbed your errant friend off the Scoopy while he was sitting at a traffic light on Sunset and now you are taking the Scoopy back to the unscrupulous rental company who let a man drive away on wheeled lipstick.

And that’s it. The only four times it’s acceptable for a man to ride a Scoopy. You have been warned. So if you’re ‘cruising’ on your Scoopy and you see a dude on a black Vario come up behind you with a look of concern on his face yelling “ Nooooooooooooo!” – that’s me and I am running towards you to slap you silly, remove you from the Scoopy and save your manhood.

Peace.