A short, silly segway soliloquy

I have a real problem with segways. On the downtown sidewalks outside my office, public safety officers and security personnel are always zipping around on them like a paramilitary force, doing ridiculous figure eights in the park as they rendezvous with each other and talk into their walkie-talkies. The other day one of them almost ran into me as I turned to step into my building. I shot him a look that said, “why don’t you go ride that thing off a bridge?” and I think he got the message even if he didn’t heed it. I can’t blame him for that, though — those things cost more than a used car. Several times in the parking garage I’ve seen a segway plugged into the wall and have had to talk myself out of stealing it. I’d probably get fired over it, but sometimes you have to make a statement. I made a joke about segways on twitter which said the proper spelling of the device is to transpose the “w” and the “g.”  That prompted dozens of response tweets from LGBT groups, most of which said that, although they usually don’t condone that kind of humor, in this case it was totally worth it. I made another joke comparing segways to fat girls, but that did not go over so well. I blame my lack of sensitivity on a bad case of PTSD (post-traumatic segway disorder) brought on by all those close brushes with calamity caused by wreckless segway pilots. Then again, who knows what the future holds. Perhaps in my old age I will form a gang of Hell’s Angels rejects called the Segway Saints, which will tool around picking up litter and robbing ATMs. Maybe I’ll get a segway for Christmas and/or my birthday and will be delighted. But that’s unlikely. In the meantime, I’m hoping the Kansas City Segway corps gets redeployed elsewhere. I can just imagine President Obama or Secretary Kerry’s next speech on Syria announcing that “there won’t be any boots on the ground, but there will be segways.”