no biscuit for car

NO BISCUIT FOR CAR

For as long as you’ve known me, I am like a parrot with hemorrhoids, repeatedly squawking about getting rid of your car.  I’ve tried it from the Peak Oil angle, telling you that if we rely on imports for 70% of our oil ( less now, with fracking, only about 40%-but I trust you understand that will not last all that much longer ), a car is a huge vulnerability.  I’ve tried it from the Frugal Living angle, telling you that if you get rid of the car and rent, you can live on almost nothing.

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I tried coming at it from a prepping perspective, explaining that you could put all your savings into extra preps.  None of this matters to any of you, because you all make far more money than I do, and your clunker you fix yourself uses so little gas and requires so little insurance that the expense registers not at all.  So, not one to ever give up the fight, I’m going to try yet again, and try in vain yet another argument.  You will need practice, and your car dependency during a guerrilla war.  I don’t know if I’ll make a difference, but I must try.

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Getting by without a car is a skill, like anything else.  And all skills need to be practiced.  I didn’t start out immune from the Siren call of a car.  Like all teenagers, I lusted after a car because I thought it would get me laid ( it would have been cheaper to get weed, but what did I know at that age?  Hell, I thought the military was an escape rather than just another prison ).  But a car was more of a fantasy.  We lived out in the country, and it still wasn’t a requirement.

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Living out of town, on acreage, I had a lot of chores.  Not just inside, because my sister had too refined of sensibilities to do any more than a token amount of housework, but outside.  Good gravy, were there plenty of outside chores.  We boarded horses, so there was fence repair ( after installation.  It was an old abandoned quarry, and that dirt was HARD ), and horse crap.  There was the chicken coop, two orchards ( watering and mowing ), lawns and a garden.  I appreciate all that now, but not then.

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I had school, then homework, then chores and if the gods smiled at me, I could get some reading in there in my spare time.  TV was only an hour a night, so that wasn’t the time waster it is now.  Usually, as I had an entire world to read about, I half-assed school work and chores to free up more time.  But the LAST thing I had time for was working a job in town.  I had plenty of opportunities, and tried my hand here and there.  But I just didn’t have the time and especially not the inclination.

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Plus, I mainly tried to do all my chores on the weekdays so I could hang out with my buddies on the weekend.  I certainly didn’t want to do all that work, just so I could work in town those two days.  As a result, very early in life I decided that money just wasn’t all that important to me.  I had to work, that was a given.  How MUCH I had to work was under my control.  I also decided that since money wasn’t important, I got to enjoy the bonus of, more often than not, picking what kind of job.

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Choosing to forego a regular paycheck, I had to get into town the old fashion way.  I have no earthly idea how far away we lived, but it probably was twenty minutes of very fast pedaling.  Call it five to seven miles.  I was just past the city limits but the town sprawled out.  I still lusted after a car, and the last year and a half I had a motorcycle ( traded for the pick-up I was given in the divorce.  Stepdad wanted it after I left the nest ), but I certainly learned how to live without a motor vehicle.

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The military and its low pay taught me how insane relying on a taxi was, and I was in great shape so I walked, again, a lot.  Not the smartest idea sometimes, as I was almost jumped once and another time stuck in high crime downtown after bar closing time.  I still kept walking, although I got smarter about it.  There was the bus, but it had limited hours and routes.  At one time, the Air Force ( where we had housing ) decided to close the gate at the rear of the base after hours.

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The Army base was right down the road from there.  So, it was way too far to go to the front gate and loop around.  When we had to work the day shift, transportation became a problem because we needed to go in so early.  I got a moped for a time but the thing broke early and I returned it to the Rent-To-Own.  I did get a ride once in awhile, but that wasn’t always practical.  My solution?  Wearing an old T-shirt, I squeezed myself under the bottom of the closed gate, redressed and walked the short distance.

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Ah, military security during the Cold War.  I didn’t really ever return to a bike until later in life.  I walked a lot.  Hours at a time, no problem.  For the most trivial of reasons.  Once, I was living in Wyoming for the summer ( no way I was living there through the coming winter! ) and only working a waiter job ( WAY below minimum wage, and total crap tips ) for fifteen or twenty hours a week.  I wanted to treat myself, so I decided to go to the movies and watch the new James Bond.

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This was Cheyenne, and between me and the theatre was another Air Force base.  I must have walked two hours each way.  For a movie I can’t even remember.  In cowboy boots.  And I didn’t even care, much, about the walk.  It was just how I survived on low wages.  Because I simply didn’t care about money. That would come several years later when Future Baby Momma got here hooks into me.  Against my will.  I don’t think I even minded paying her all my money as much as I minded working jobs I hated, FOR that money. 

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Living without a car is easy.  It does take practice for the work-arounds and learning how to minimize your distances.  Mostly, it is having the proper mindset to get rid of the car.  Mine was easy and early.  But you certainly cannot go from pampered transportation to walking or biking, overnight.  There is a learning curve.  Not because it is hard but because you must learn how to make it easier.  Walking smarter rather than harder, as it were.  And I wouldn’t recommend walking.  Not with how today’s shoes are made. 

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It is cheaper to keep a bike running than it is replacing shoes.  But, all that and more tomorrow.

( .Y. )

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