I was walking to the store the other night, after dark, and passed by the "assisted living" place, when I heard two kids on those silly skinny metal scooters coming up behind me (like they own the sidewalks). The second one tried to do a skateboard maneuver when he went thought a driveway dugout -- the one where you jump up. Except he didn't quite pull it off.
I don't think these scooters are made for doing skateboard maneuvers.
So he jumped up into the air a bit, then came down, but the scooter went one way, out from under him and to the right (must be a Republican scooter), and the kid went the other way, sort of, a little to the left but mostly forward, and down, and fell flat on his face, head one way, feet the other.
Didn't even get a chance to put his arms out to break his fall or brace himself. They stayed at his side. And he went <FAGROON!/boof!> right onto the pavement, like a big 5-foot piece of Christmas ham falling over, or a beeftongue falling off a chair onto the floor. Not three feet from me. It stopped his friend, who didn't seem to care if he got hurt or not, because his friend just started laughing at him.
I guess his pudgy belly absorbed most of the impact, for he got right up and took off while his friend howled with laughter. It *was* a funny sight, and the kid deserved it for trying a stupid stunt on the sidewalk.
In general, what is it about these scooters that makes them so popular? They really don't require any skill, unlike a skateboard, so maybe that's why. (There's a kid across the street here who, every weekend, spends his whole day practicing skateboard maneuvers. Some life. I used to wonder what that recurrent odd sound was until I finally looked out the window and saw him doing this same "trick" over and over at the curb. Imagine if all you had to do with your life was skateboard tricks.)