"My wife wouldn't let me get one unless I was highly visible," says Gus, who was parked outside our offices a moment ago. His helmet is plated with a golden dinner mat, red blossom, and tiny plastic monkey. The scooter, of course, is bedecked to hell and back with the kind of frayed plastic flowers you see marking the sites of highway fatalities. But Gus says he's never been in an accident, although "I had to beat a guy up once for taking issue with my bike. It just had to be done."

• The cat's meow.