Editor’s note: This article is a humor column.
There is a certain kind of courage it takes to live authentically at the University. To walk into the Pavilion during rush hour and face the never ending Chick-fil-A line. To sit in the front row of a 200-person lecture and confidently raise your hand. But nevertheless, nothing compares to the courage it takes to ride a Veo scooter down McCormick Road in broad daylight and look people in the eye while doing it.
Cruz Kontrol has it. That courage. Barely.
"I won't lie,” Cruz said, settling into his seat. “I feel ashamed every time I hop on the scooter. But I keep going back. It’s an itch I just can't scratch.”
His breaking point came last week — arriving at his 8 a.m. in record time, wind-chapped but triumphant, only to be greeted by his friend with, "Omg, did you scooter here…again?” The class laughed. Cruz laughed too, a broken, sad sort of laugh.
It wasn't always like this. There was a time, not so long ago, when he rode freely. Blissfully cruising down McCormick, hair blowing in the wind and unbothered by the judgment of his peers. That time ended on a Tuesday morning last October, when an acquaintance — someone Cruz had exactly one class with and had never spoken to outside of asking what the homework was — shouted his full government name across the road just as the great migration of students poured out of their 9 a.m. lectures. Hundreds of eyes. Disapproving head shakes. A scooter legend, scorned, just like that.
Somewhere along the way, being caught on a Veo had become a fate worse than being late to class, worse than tripping on the steps of Old Cabell or worse than accidentally calling your TA "mom" in front of your ECON 2010 discussion. Nobody declared this. But the consensus had been reached. Scooter shame became a shared language on Grounds, spoken entirely in side-eyes and disapproving looks.
“I had to adapt, evolve,” Cruz said.
Hoodie up. Scarf pulled tight around his face. Sunglasses on, despite the fact that it had reached that point of the year when the sun didn’t come out for days. A disguise assembled not for practicality, but for survival, for necessity.
“It's not ideal,” he admitted, “but neither is a $30 Uber to the Corner.”
By any reasonable economic analysis, the Veo scooter is the utility-maximizing transportation choice on Grounds. It is faster than walking, cheaper than rideshare, way more reliable than the buses and significantly more enjoyable than either. Cruz was steadfast about this.
“I will die on that hill,” he said, which, given the incline of Observatory Hill, seems like a very real possibility.
He does acknowledge some accountability. The O’Hill stoplight incident, for instance, when the scooter stalled out, and he had to awkwardly kick it forward while a massive line of cars behind him watched in silence. He single-handedly caused a traffic jam. That one, Cruz concedes, is on him. He owns it.
Cruz had less patience for the critics. The side-eye from fellow students? The muttering about scooters "terrorizing" campus? The performative cringe from students who, he noted, are actively being passed on the hill?
“They simply hate me cause they ain't me,” Cruz said. “I stand by this.”
What Cruz wants the University community to understand, he continued, is that there is a distinction — an important one — between the reckless and the reasonable. He is not the person weaving through the Contemplative Commons bridge at full speed. Nor is he the person who makes your life flash before your eyes after flying by you on the sidewalk. He wants no association with those individuals.
He is, however, the person who can make it from his dorm to his 9 a.m. Spanish class in New Cabell in under six minutes. The person who does not wait for the bus. The person who has, on more than one occasion, felt genuine joy gliding past the bozos trekking along the hill by Clark Hall.
“I'm done hiding,” Cruz said. “I am a Veo scooter rider. And I am proud."
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