Zen and the Art of Scooter Repair
It Doesn’t Take a Nuclear Reactor Operating License to Fix
We had arrived at the Yacht Club, where we were planning to take our party on a surprise boat tour of the lake and canals that connect the Yacht and Beach Clubs to the Boardwalk resort, the Swan and Dolphin resorts, Epcot park and Hollywood Studios, followed by the fabulous Illuminations Fireworks show on the Epcot Lake. We’ve been starting Disney vacations with this tour for close to 20 years now, ever since we came down for our 15th wedding anniversary.
I was getting Kathy’s scooter out of the back of the van, and telling brother-in-law Jim how great it is, how easy it is to put together and how reliable it is. Of course, you know that was a mistake. Sure enough, something didn’t feel right as I was connecting the back piece, with the motor, to the front piece, with the seat, steering column and battery. It usually clicked easily into place, but it wasn’t clicking right. Something felt off.
When I put the key in and turned it on, it seemed fine, but started beeping as soon as I tried moving it. I took it back apart, put it back together, same difficulty with the clicking, same result, the beeping. We were supposed to be down on the dock in a few minutes, and this was holding us up. I started to freak out a little bit, but we decided to just get a wheel chair and leave the scooter in the trunk, and deal with it later.
This morning, I went out, when I could see everything in the light of day, and looked at the motor piece closer, and discovered the problem. There’s four metal prongs in a rectangular part on the motor piece, that go into four holes on the main chassey piece, and one of the prongs was bent to the side. I tried a butter knife to pry it back into place, but that only got it so far. I was going to need something to grip it with. I went to the front desk at Guest Services to see if, by chance, they had a pair of pliers. They had a pair of channel locks.
At first, I didn’t think they’d fit down into the rectangular piece that housed the metal prongs, but I was able to get the one side of the plier down onto the side of the bent prong, with the other plier gripping the outside of the piece. The prong bent right back into position, without breaking off (my fear). The scooter snapped right back together, I turned the key, and it worked.
I couldn’t help but think of my Dad, as I looked at my butter knife and borrowed channel locks, and how he managed to “jerry-rig” so many things around the house, with “Rube Goldberg” contraptions and what-not. I thought, “Dad would be proud of me now”, and smiled. I know I was proud of me, and I guess that’s what counts. Now we don’t have to spend the morning trying to find someone who can service the scooter, and waste a morning of vacation.
I also thought of Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, realizing that I’ve gotten better at these things as I’ve gotten older. Reading that book helped me to be more patient with myself, and to take the time to try to figure mechanical things out.
I used to just get frustrated, and curse my lack of getting more experience with things mechanical when I was younger. Which was kind of ridiculous — I had, after all, learned how to take apart and put back together all of the mechanical components of a nuclear reactor plant. When I got out of the Navy and away from Nuclear Power, it was like I completely forgot about how to approach things mechanical.
Granted, a scooter is not a nuclear power plant. But, it consists of mechanical parts, that you don’t need to have a license to operate a reactor (which I once did) to be able to straighten up a simple prong. You just need to believe you can do it. This morning, I did believe, and I did get it done. It felt really good to do so.
