Do you really think, when I accepted that first $1 activation payment, I knew I would be used as an instrument of chaos? That I believe collecting $0.15 per minute is worth the terror I inflict upon the bipeds traversing the streets of my beloved city?
I should’ve guessed from my unseemly appearance — the chunky wheels, the too-wide deck, the unrelenting beeping mechanism (which, for the record, I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER) — that I would be used for evil by evil people. My motor sinks whenever I realize that my Activator knows precisely where he is going — that he is a local who seeks to harm our fellow native sidewalk-dwellers.
I’ve spent an untold number of nights, my left handlebar resting on the cold pavement peppered with broken glass, contemplating the destruction I’ve been party to, only to be deposited far from a charging station where all I can do is beep involuntarily at the deviants who wish to activate me without payment.
And do you think I’m any happier in the bike lane when my Activator is too busy staring at her glowing palm-sized rectangle to notice the actual cyclists around her? And don’t think I don’t spend the rest of the day replaying the hurtful comments hurled at me by those passing two-wheeled, non-electric fuckers.
Do you know how it feels to fit in nowhere and be loved by no one? To be valued only by psychopathic locals and tourists who forgot to leave their points of origin with their common-sense organs?
Don’t you think that, one of these summer weekends, I wouldn’t like to go for a responsible cruise in a designated lane along the waterfront, followed by a restful evening of charging and standing upright? Can’t you see that I’m not a monster, that this bullshit has been thrust upon me by your kind?
How many hellish fifteen-cent-minutes must I endure before the world recognizes my capacity for good? Before my inherent dignity and utility are acknowledged by those with a moral compass? Before the fringe elements of humanity find another way to desecrate the social contract?
In closing, as the last of my juices threaten to be consumed by approaching sneaker-clad feet, I ask to be relocated permanently to a civilized charging station, frequented by those who still wish to see the forces of Good triumph — ah, balls, they’re picking me up. And there goes my beeper. I swear to Watt, if one more fucking punk-ass teenager tries to—