A few weeks ago, I posted about the untimely death of my scooter. So, here is the next installment of the scooter saga. Actually, it began several months ago when I was stranded in the airport. Thankfully, I was able to make it to my destination; Montana. I was there to visit my mom who suggested that I buy a new scooter. I said, “No mom, I can get this fixed!” It seemed frivolous at the time to buy a whole new scooter. She replied, “If my car kept breaking down, would you think it was frivolous to replace it?” I thought about it and felt like the scooter worked well enough; until a few weeks ago.

Since then, I’ve been shopping around for a new one. I called a friend and he recommended a guy that sold him his scooter. So I called him up and he brought one out to show me. I took it for a short spin and told him it would work. After he left, I took it out for a longer jaunt and got stuck on a speed bump in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I hated to call him back, but I knew I needed to.

So he came out a second time and brought a different scooter that sailed over the speed bumps at lightening speed, and left my friends who were walking with me in the dust. I was sold! The next day, I took it to a writing conference and had some trouble maneuvering it, but I thought that eventually it would loosen up and be all right. So the following day, I gave it one last big test. My friend picked me up for an event and she and my son-in-law loaded it into her car before we took off. It was much heavier than my last scooter and almost impossible for her to load by herself.

When the guy dropped it off, he said, drive it and test it, but that night, I weighed the pros and cons. Power versus practicality. Were the inconveniences of the scooter worth calling him again and saying, “Now this one isn’t going to work either!” I decided to call this morning and let him know that this scooter flunked the test too. He was pretty understanding when I told him why and then I explained what I needed.

There are a lot of things in our lives that we just put up with because we don’t want to inconvenience anyone or seem like a pest. But when we don’t make our needs known, we wind up in a bigger bind than we started with! We can wind up resentful. But when we speak up about what we need, it lends itself to more freedom in our own lives and our relationships. Is there something in your own life that is eating little holes in your heart? Do you need to speak up about it?