On A Story About People Falling Over on a Family Trip

 On A Story About People Falling Over on a Family Trip


After some political posts, I want to get back to some funny stories. A few years ago, my family took a road trip through Pennsylvania. Along the way, we stopped somewhere in the middle of nowhere at a covered wooden bridge. That was apparently the big thing to see in the area. An old bridge, but this one was covered with a roof. Very historical. Anyway, we weren't the only intrepid explorers of rural Pennsylvania who made the trip to see the old covered bridge. A group of twenty or so Vespa-riding tourists pulled up after us.

Now, these were American Vespa riders. They were middle-aged and older, and not one of them had experience controlling a small moving vehicle traveling at medium speed in their lives. By the looks of them, bicycling was right out. When they had finished their tour of the covered bridge, they got back on Vespas, something that took some coaching from the tour guide. One lady, in an attempt to remain upright, took off directly into the tour guide. To the credit of the tour guide, she managed to catch her wayward rider as she was being run over. The guide coached the rider through letting go of the throttle so as to stop trying to move forward into the tour guide. Once the rider had figured out the motion of not pressing forward, she stopped the vehicle. Then she keeled over sideways, Vespa and all. A few more of the tourists had to pitch in to pull the vehicle off of her, help hoist the woman back to her feet, and get her back in the saddle. Eventually, they took off. They might be roaming the back roads of Pennsylvania to this day for all I know, pausing every few miles to get their Vespas upright.

Later that night we were parked in a grocery store parking lot somewhere outside of Philadelphia. Some of my family ran in to grab groceries while the rest of us waited in the car. A lone man on a Vespa pulled up to the store and parked outside. He left and returned with a few bags of groceries, piling them precariously on the back of his vehicle.

"What do you want to bet he falls over?" asked my dad as we watched from the car.

The man hopped on his Vespa and kicked up his legs in anticipation of forward movement. The Vespa rolled ninety degrees and stayed exactly where it was. The man and his groceries spilled out onto the pavement as my dad and a few passersby went to make sure he was ok.

After that, I coined a phrase my family still uses. "I guess you could say," I said when my dad got back to the car and we had finished laughing, "that went over like a Pennsylvania Vespa driver."

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