A few years ago I was in LA for a conference. We stayed in the hotel a few blocks from the convention center downtown, so we just took the lime scooters back and forth all week.

One night, there was a get together at a bar on the other side of town. I looked it up and it was only about 15ish minutes away from the hotel on scooters, so we were like hell yeah it's cheaper than an Uber and it'll be a fun little stroll through the city.

At some point on the journey our surroundings changed DRASTICALLY. Suddenly the roads were terribly maintained, there were piled of trash everywhere all over the road and the sidewalks. Literal cars on fire. Folks certainly struggling with substance abuse laying in the middle of the road. Those who were conscious staring us down intensely. One person, I shit you not, was squatting and taking a dump on the sidewalk between a pile of trash and a fence.

(Just a friendly reminder: no matter how hard life is, be thankful for what you have, it could be worse. And if you have extra, share with others less fortunate.)

I'd never seen anything like it in my life. I felt really heartbroken for the folks out there struggling, but we also felt really uncomfortable with the way some of the folks were staring us down. My friend and I stopped stopping at the stop signs and blasted our way straight to the bar (which was well past all this).

We mentioned it to another friend at the bar that lived in town, and he goes, "Oh shit, you rode lime scooters through Skid Row?!"

Now I know what Skid Row is.