esme

So I was chatting with Opheliar the other day, telling her my sob story about this junky Vespa Primavera I found on ebay and was all bidding on and then lost at the last minute. And she said to me, "I've found that often these things come back to you, but better."

So the next day, there was a Primavera on craigslist for $1300. I asked around to my friends; they said it was probably a decent price. A whole slew of us went to look at it today, including my buddy P, who totally knows scooters. So we got to the place. It was pretty obvious the guy hadn't ridden it in awhile. It took at least a half dozen kicks to get it started. It looked, well, it looked okay. So the dude who was selling it took it for a spin. As he was pulling back up to the sidewalk, the license plate fell off. Then I drove it around. Then P drove it around. When he returned, he announced that the taillight, too, had jumped off the bike. So, word on the street from my buddies was: it's not worth more than a thousand. I told the guy to give me a bell when he was willing to drop the price.

So we all decide to go get some coffee. We run into this guy that knows P. Awhile ago the guy bought a Primavera that P had built. So the guy says "I fell bad telling you this, but I'm selling my bike." P turns to me. "Buy it....wait, how much?" "A thousand." "Buy it."

It's not in my hands yet, but if all goes well, it looks like I'm gonna be gettin' me some vintage action sometime very soon. w00t.