My good son, thinking he was pulling a fast one on me, has instead done me an ENORMOUS favor. A favor so huge it’s almost hard to comprehend.
In an effort to bop me about the head and shoulders, he slipped into my garage and STOLE my car.
Did I call the cops?
No.
Well. Maybe I should have. But no, I ain’t about to sic the gendarmes on my kid.
So it’s been parked in his garage for lo! these many weeks. And my garage has been miraculously, pristinely empty for lo! the same many weeks.
And y’know what?
I don’t miss the damn thing!
Matter of fact…hang onto your communal hats,, dear readers…matter of fact, I’ve discovered that I’m glad to be rid of it.
- No kidding. Because…no everything!
- No expensive gasoline refills
- No nuisancey trips to the garage for regular maintenance
- No surprise expensive repairs
- No concern that someone will steal it
Turns out we have an Uber driver living right across the street…one of half-a-dozen such worthies who inhabit the ‘Hood. If I need to go someplace that I can’t reach on foot, or where I have to haul stuff around, that Uber driver is FRONT AND CENTER.
And an occasional cab ride with a neighbor costs a fraction of what it costs to store, maintain, and fuel a gasoline-run vehicle.
Huh. You’d think, after having lived in London for awhile (where few if any residents actually owned a car), I’d have known that. Known it a long time ago! But oooohhh no!
It’s a cultural thing, I guess.
Another cultural thing — one that has sprung up in the past five or ten years — is that the ‘Hood is awash in small businesses that cater to one’s daily, weekly, and monthly needs.
- Three major grocery stores (one of them a beloved Sprouts)
- A hair salon
- A veterinarian
- A nail salon
- A computer store
- Another computer store!
- A dentist…
It goes on and on and on…. Literally, there’s almost NO service or product that I can’t access — easily — on foot from my house. All of these and then some are within a few steps of the Funny Farm!
Why on earth did I never notice this???
And why has it never registered with me: the piles of money I could have been saving over the years, simply by patronizing the businesses within walking distance or by hiring a cab to take me to more distant places?
Y’know, the same circumstance held forth when my mother and I lived in San Francisco, during the few years between the time my father went back to sea (he was an oil tanker captain) and the time he finally made his escape into retirement. He bought himself a fancy-dan Chrysler: quite a nice car. But because he was floating around on a ship most of the time, he never drove it.
Neither did my mother. I think she lived in fear of damaging it, which would have brought the heavens down upon her head. But more to the present point: we didn’t need that car in San Francisco. The city had more than ample public transit…and that’s what we used to get around. I rode a bus to school. The grocery store was within easy walking distance. My mother and I rode a streetcar to visit her relatives in Berkeley. If push came to shove, we might occasionally hire a taxi…rarely.
Well…. Nowadays, Phoenix is much like San Francisco was, in that you don’t need a car to get around here! Especially not with a fleet of Uber cabs in the offing.
And therein lies the crux of our present son-inspired discovery: I don’t need a car to get around here! That thing taking up space in my garage was really just a hole in the concrete into which to pour money.
***
Well, we now have a cave on the south side of the house. My son parks his chariot in there when he comes to visit. And he’s more than welcome to it.
It has occurred to me to repurpose it as an art studio. But…do I wanna do that? Really? Something else to take care of???
My inclination is to leave it as it is: an empty hole for His Lordship to use at his convenience. It will get his vehicle in out of the sun, come summertime: a highly desirable circumstance. Otherwise, it can just sit there. Empty.
And costing nothing!
Just now, the Bird Theater is dominated by a flock of beautiful doves. A slew of white-wings waddle around out here, grumbling at each other and searching for the seeds I’ve failed to put out this morning. Those critters do make for a fine start to the day.