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22nd January 2003

The Beer Scooter

How many times have you woken up in the morning after a hard night of drinking at Beddington Park and thought 'How did I get home?'  As hard as you try, you cannot piece together your return journey from the bar to your home. 

The answer to this puzzle is that you used a Beer Scooter.  The Beer Scooter is a mythical form of transport, owned and leased out to the drunk by Bacchus the Roman God of Wine.  Bacchus has branched out since the decrease in the worship of the Roman pantheon and bought a large batch of these magical devices.  The Beer Scooter works in the following fashion: 

The passenger reaches a certain level of drunkenness and the "slurring gland" begins to give off a pheromone.  Bacchus or one of his many sub-contractors detects the pheromone and sends down a winged Beer Scooter.  The scooter scoops up the passenger and deposits them in their bedroom via a trans-dimensional portal. 

It is not cheap to run a Beer Scooter franchise, so a large portion of the passenger's in-pocket cash is taken as payment. 'How did I spend so much money?'

Beer Scooters have a poor safety record and are thought to be responsible for 90% of all UDI (Unidentified Drinking Injuries).  An undocumented feature of the Beer Scooter is the destruction of time segments during the trip.  The nature of trans-dimensional portals dictates that time will be lost, seemingly unaccounted for.  This generates the third question after a night out 'What happened?'   With good intentions, Bacchus opted for the EMIT (Embarrassing Moments In Time) add on, that automatically removes, in descending order, those parts in time regretted most.  Unfortunately one person's EMIT is not necessarily the EMIT of another and quite often lost time is regained over a suitable period.

Independent studies have also shown that Beer Goggles cause the scooter's navigation system to malfunction thus sending the passenger to the wrong bedroom often with horrific consequences.  

With recent models including a GPS (Global Positioning System), Bacchus made an investment in a scooter drive-thru chain specialising in half eaten kebabs and pizza crusts.  Another question answered!!

For the family man, Beer Scooters come equipped with flowers picked from other people's garden and Thump-A-Lot Boots.  These boots are designed in such a way that no matter how quietly you tip-toe, you are sure to wake up your other half.  Special anti-gravity springs ensure that you bump into every wall and the CTSGS (Coffee Table Seeking Guidance System) explains the ring barked shins.

The final add-in Bacchus saw fit to invest in for some scooters is TAS (Tobacco Absorption System). This explains how one person can apparently get through 260 Marlboro Lights in a single night.

PS: Don't forget the on-board heater which allows you to get home from the bar in sub-zero temperatures wearing just a t-shirt.