Never Buy a Car

After eight years of being the Carfree Family, of demonstrating that it was possible to thrive without a car, even with children, we bought a car.

Looking back, I'm not sure why we ever wanted to do such a stupid thing.

OK, there were reasons, and the one I site most often is that our daughter made it into a charter school that is about six miles outside of town, down a two lane, high speed road, with bike lanes, to be sure, but with the necessity of merging into three roundabouts.  She can take the bus, but if she wants to do any after-school activities, and she is Ms. Activity, then she would have no way home.  The city bus, for reasons that are not clear, stops running that direction after 5:00 p.m.

That is the logical reason.  However, I think in some ways, it was just a weak moment.  My mother had just passed away.  While I was out of town to wait by her bedside and to attend her funeral, my wife had rented a car to make it easier for her to work full time and to take care of the children.  They were enjoying the break from bicycling everywhere, and it is nice, sometimes, to take a break.

But in general, owning a car has been an unmitigated disaster.  I cannot help but feel that I have failed in some fundamental way with respect to owning a car.  The very reason we bought the car has become the bane of our existence.  Our daughter needs rides home most of the time.  And if she does not get them from us, she gets rides with friends.  We quote to her all the statistics about Millenials postponing learning how to drive.  (But it seems that often it's not the case that they're bicycling or taking public transportation but getting rides from parents).  Somehow, in spite of being a very intelligent, concerned, and progressive individual, who was raised to use alternative transportation, she does not see the same harm in getting into a car that we do.

At the same time we bought the car.  I bought a scooter.  It was a bit of an "in for a penny, in for a pound" sort of thing, but I also knew that if we owned a motor vehicle, there would be some pressure to drive, and I did not want to be trapped into driving a motor vehicle that was obscenely disproportionate to the job it had to do.  I've liked scooters since seeing an old Lambretta around the Aztec Cafe in the nineties.  I do enjoy the scooter to a great extent, though I do feel ashamed of using it, if I use it for a short hop to the store, or any other trip where I could have used a bicycle.  I rode it out to Mississippi to do a canoe trip with my friend John of Quapaw Canoe Company.  I would have preferred to bicycle, but there's no time in my life for such a trip.

My wife points out, quite rightly, that we need to sell the scooter as well as the car then next time we go carfree, and if it would mean being free of the car, I would gladly sell the scooter as well, but as long as we have children who think they need rides, I would prefer to give them rides on a scooter as opposed to a car.

But that comes to the real issue that impelled me to sit down and write this morning.  Now that there is a car, there is a constant fight over whether it needs to be used or not.  Without the car, if it was snowing, you put on your hiking boots and walked to the bus stop.  Now, the kids expect a ride.  And, OK, that might be kind of alright.  I don't want my kids waiting for the school bus in blowing snow when it's in the teens, (though I do miss taking the bus myself and walking up to work with the snow crunching under my feet).  But there's creep -- birthday parties - OK, we want our kids to go to birthday parties, but we don't want to bicycle for two hours getting them out to their friend's houses and back, especially when it's late at night.  PTSC meetings - OK, we didn't participate in that type of thing much because we used being on bicycles as an excuse.  We don't have an excuse now.

But everything has become negotiable, and the kids are not on our side.  What I need most in life is someone who will keep me on track.  I want my kids to say, "don't be ridiculous dad, we can just take the city bus," when, in a moment of weakness, I grab the car keys.  They don't do that.  They want rides to school for no other reason than they don't want to walk to the bus stop, and they don't like it that the bus gets them to school just on time for school instead of a little early.  I end up getting angry and referring to the car as "that fucking car" as in "I'm not going to drive that fucking car."  Then I have bad parent feelings.  Sometimes, I think, I'm not going to get angry, I'll give them a ride!  And that sort of inconsistency in parenting just makes it worse.

My life goal has always been simple, and I've had the same goal since childhood.  I want to live simply enough that I can limit my spending to a reasonable amount, so that I can maximize my time for walking, backpacking, hiking, writing, and doing good in the world.  I want to avoid all the consumerist traps.  I want to take care of Mother Earth.  To that end, I've poured over the Frugal Gazette, Your Money or Your Life, and most recently, I've been following Mr. Money Mustache.  In theory, now that we have our mortgage paid, we can save about $1600 a month, which means in theory, we can save $192,000 in ten years, with which, even at a prudent, 6% interest, we could be making almost $12,000 a year on investments, which, in theory, I think we can live on.  Life, however, is much messier than that, and we have grown a little sloppy with the budgeting in the past six months. (Not to mention my moral issues with stocks, capitalism, etc.)

With the car, however, it would obviously be best to hold on to it and work on teaching the children that it is for extraordinary circumstances - the birthday party that really is too far or too late.  The storm that really is too windy, wet, and/or cold.  It's just hard for me to find the right limits to set, and to communicate them without getting angry at owning a car at all.  I try to imagine how Thich Nhat Hanh would approach it.  "Hello my little car.  I know that using you causes damage to the earth, and it is bad for my health, but there are times when I need to get somewhere.  There are times when I am sick, and there are times my children need to do something important to them, I use you mindfully and carefully, after examining all the other options for travel I may have. I thank you little car."  Meanwhile we dream of the day when our driveway is a garden once again.

Just like Nietzsche says it would be better not to have been born at all, with a car, it is best never to buy one.  I just wish I could impart that message on my children.

How the Paperless Office Increases Efficiency

Filing my paycheck stub.

Old method:

Pull open file drawer.

Put paystub in correct file.

Close drawer.

Wonder when the hell I should throw things out.

The new, paperless office:

Clear off desk next to scanner.

Bring laptop to desk.

Hookup scanner.

Turn on laptop, wait for it to boot.

Log in to Mac OS, wait for login, and all the little menubar items to finish doing their startup thing.

Open Scansnap application.

Open password secured sparsebundle from Drop box.

Scan paystub.

Name scanned file properly so Hazel will file it for me in the right place.

Shred paystub.

Close and detach scanner.

Turn off laptop and put it away.

Wonder when the hell I should delete my old files.

Mindful Eating

I love the literature on mindful eating.  I read Leo Baubata's commentaries on the subject on Zen Habits.  I love the One Bowl Book by Don Gerrard.  I take to heart Thich Nhat Hanh's exhortations to be mindful while eating, meditating on the interconnections of all things that lead to one particular bite of food at one particular moment in time.

I am, however, an admitted failure at mindful eating.  The morning paper is a ritual for my wife and I.  I love to flip through the paper while I eat, and when I sit down to have a salad for lunch, I tend to open a magazine or a book.  I am a mealtime reader.

I may work on that in 2014.  I may eat a few meals alone, without distraction, savoring each bite.  However, I also want to mindful of who I am, and the way I do things.  Why try to change so much, so often?