But first a little background: My 'regular' readers will know that I am the proud owner of one slightly neglected scooter (it has been downgraded from 'love of my life' to 'weekend fling' since I resumed public transport commuting unfortunately ... it's not you, it's me). When i've finished using it for the day I park the aforementioned scoot on the sidewalk next to my house, bid it goodnight, remind it not to get nicked and then go indoors.
For the last nine months (on and off) however, I have been dancing a curious dance with a complete stranger, in which my unwitting scoot has played a rather pivotal role. Early this year I went out to my scoot in the morning, and saw a 5c coin on the seat. Assuming some community-minded individual had picked it up off the ground and left it there for whoever dropped it, I put it on the ground and carried on my way. The next day it was there on the seat again and I, getting a tad peeved that the community-minded individual clearly thought it was my 5c, put it on the ground again.
The next day, the coin was there again. And it was only then that I looked closer and realised that it was a 10c coin, not the 5c originally left. Being, at the time, on the subsistence wages of a university lecturer, I thought, 'right, finders keepers', popped it in my pocket and forgot about it ... until the next morning when a 5c coin was again sitting on the seat of my scoot.
This routine of 5c and 10c coins turning up on the seat of my scoot continued for a week or so, until I mentioned it to my partner, who pointed out that it wasn't particularly normal for scooters to spontaneously generate Australian currency and offered forth some rather interesting conspiracy theories. Amongst other amusing options, these included the possibility that someone was planning on stealing my bike and was paying it off 5c and 10c at a time.
Whatever the rationale, the money kept coming, and I kept putting it in my pocket. After a few weeks it occurred to me that whoever was doing it might have developed something of a compulsion and might need a hand to break the habit (I could have let them continue indefinitely but there are faster ways for me to get rich quick). I didn't quite know what I would say in a note (humiliating or embarrassing whoever it was was the last thing I wanted to do), so I simply started putting the coins into a glass jar that I left next to my fence. A few would accumulate there over a few days and then kids/misc opportunists would clean it out. I'm not sure exactly what effect this had but after a few weeks more the coins stopped, leaving me a touch sad but with a sense of things being back in their proper place.
I thought that was the end of it but a few weeks later it started again, 5 and 10 cents at a time. It petered out after a week but it still happens every now and then.
After some months of this happening, it's not something I resent in the slightest, rather I love the thought that there is someone mysterious, mad, magical or just interesting who thinks my scooter (or me) is worthy of such affection. My very own scooter fairy. Inspiration and warm fuzzy feelings come from the strangest places ... a cheap scooter parked on sidestreet in Brunswick is one of mine.
