vespa sting

today - a busy intersection outside parliament, which still makes me smile when I walk past most days - here's my silly story

Scene 1:             1978,     a Friday  at 5:30 pm, enter, stage left...

Gordo (a young wine waiter),
      on the way to a nice restaurant,
            black velvet jacket, frilly white shirt,
            bow-tie, cummerbund.
      on a metallic green Vespa scooter
           with a sheepskin seat cover
           red full-face helmet.
      and blissfully unaware he had no wheel nuts
          remaining on the front wheel.
      He stops at the lights, but his front wheel doesn't.

Scene 2 
     Cut To :     front wheel
                            rolling right across the intersection 
                            and about 50 meters further down the road...

Scene 3   
         Cut Back To: busy intersection
                  He  slowly topples, laughing,
                         still sitting upright
                         feet in the running boards
                         still holding the handlebars

                  at the feet of thirty pedestrians
                  and a bus full of commuters in the next lane

At least I got a big round of applause !