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Automobiles

The Evolution of Car-Freedom

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Another (un)lovely day in Phoenix. Leave us all FLEE it…

LOL! That’s a take-off on the daily pitch of a guy who, back in the Day, was probably Phoenix’s all-time greatest morning talk-show host.

He’s long gone now. But anyone who’s  been in the Valley for a lifetime or so remembers his daily greeting:

It’s a beautiful day in Arizona…
Leave us all enjoy it!

Yeah. Arizonans were that illiterate, back in the day. 😀 He was much beloved, though…and frankly, much missed.

Truth to tell, it’s hotter than a by-gawd out there just now.

“A beautiful day,” it ain’t.

So far, quite to the contrary.

Oh…really, though…. Look at it through the right lens, and it’s funnier than a crutch.

****

My son has decided that I should get off the sauce. My terrifying drinking habits have led him to believe I’m a lush!  And he wants me to swear off.

What are those terrifying habits?

-> Swilling down a couple of glasses of wine with the large meal of the day. “Dinner,” most Americans would call it, except that I partake of this pile of chow at noon, when most of us are eating what we would call “Lunch.”

This latter feast, as you no doubt know if you live on this half of the globe, is taken at mid-day and is usually a light meal.

Okay. Being a little weird (and having grown up in an entirely different country…), I stoke up the barbecue along about noon and sizzle myself a portion of meat (steak, lamb, pork chop, fish filet, or the like), a starch (potato, pasta, beans, whatnot), and a green or yellow vegetable (broccoli, asparagus, green beans, carrots, corn, etc.). This makes a large meal: large enough to soak up whatever wine I decide to lap down with it.

A few hours later, at what most FaM readers would call “dinner time,” I have a much smaller, lighter meal, usually without benefit of booze.

Well.

Observing me chow down on what I call “the big meal of the day” (i.e., lunch in your jargon), and seeing me swill down a glass of wine with it, Wonder Cleaning-Lady concluded that I am a lush.

Yes. She decided that because I was drinking an alcoholic beverage at mid-day — along about noon — I must be a drunk. 

{Understand: a “glass” of wine in my house is a wine glass…one of those bubbles atop a stem. Filled to the top, it holds about a third of what a standard US-style glass holds…and it’s never filled to the top.)

To make things worse…ooooohhhh gawd! Get this:

She was here on a day after I’d been awake the better part of an insomniac night.

I’d had almost no sleep the night before she showed up here. And all the time she was banging and roaring around the house, what I most craved was just to go back to bed. 

Not an option, of course.

So…stupidly…ooooh HOW stupidly!… I put my noon meal on the table. Sat down to eat it, accompanied by the usual partial glass of red wine. And feeling soooooooooo tired that I pushed the plate aside, laid my head in my arms on the table, and promptly FELL ASLEEP.

No kidding.

So what does she do?

She whips out her little camera (we all carry a camera with us, everyplace we go, right?) and snaps photos of me with my head in my arms on the table, a half-full glass of red wine sitting there next to my noggin.. 

These, she soon displays to my son, telling him that I was so drunk I fell asleep at the dinner table while she was here.

Yes. I did fall asleep.
No. I did not pass out in a drunken stupor.

But o’course, he couldn’t tell that from a snapshot. And nothing I could say would persuade him of what really happened.

So now the Kid is on High Alert at all times. He thinks I’m a drunk, and he thinks I’m pirating wine to swizzle at every opportunity.

I know: it would be funny if it weren’t so damn stupid!

Funny or stupid — or even serious, if you prefer — it has created a shopping-bag full of trouble for me.

At this point, I can’t persuade M’hijito that I’m not a lush and that I do not loaf around the house all day swilling booze.

So convinced is he that he raided my kitchen and stole the two bottles of sinful wine it contained: a bottle of red and a bottle of white. He also made off with my car, because he imagines I cruise around the city three sheets to the wind!

Hm.

I really SHOULD fire the cleaning lady, shouldn’t I? The woman has created a gigantic kettle full of trouble for me. How to get out of that kettle escapes me at the moment.

But that poses its own little headaches:

* Good cleaning ladies are notoriously hard to come by. And you may be real sure I don’t want to clean this four-bedroom palace myself.

* If I can her, will that not just damn me by my own actions? It will look like I’m firing her because she knows I guzzle down the vast kegs of wine at noon that she reported to my son.

* And yeah: I do hate cleaning house! So much so that I’m inclined to let this stupid flap go, just to hang onto the woman.

The latter is itself probably pretty stupid, eh? 

I mean, after all: If she’s going to squeal on me to my son because I dared to swill a glass of wine with lunch, what other trouble will she make for me? 

* People in a given trade tend to know each other. So let’s say I do can her and hire a new cleaning lady: next thing we know New CL will also think I’m a lush, having been told so by the present incumbent.

****

{sigh} I’m brought back to my periodically recurring thought: that I should sell this house and move out of Phoenix.

Just. 

Get. 

Away.

From.

Here.

But y’know…I don’t wanna!

* I love my house.
* I like my neighbors.
* Even the Romanian Landlord and I are acting like friends of late.
* The house is paid for.
* I could walk to my son’s house from here.
* I don’t wanna move away! 

So here we are: I’m living in a lovely house with a huge, EMPTY garage. My son has absconded with my car. I’m not about to get into a fight with him over that damn thing.

And we have an army of Uber drivers in this neighborhood…

We have a busy and efficient light-rail system running right up the west side of the ‘Hood…

The neighbors and I are getting along fine of late…

It’s (relatively!) safe here…

And, gilding all those lilies, just about all of the grocery stores and household marketers are within reasonable walking distance.

So no: I don’t wanna move away from here!!!!

And I ain’t a-gonna. 

Eeeps! Sell Car? Get Free? Whaaaaa!

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O…M…G…  Contemplating the idea of selling the car, as I was throwing myself around fixing dinner, suddenly gave me SUCH an emotional overload that, briefly, I thought I was gonna pass out.

Such is the power of cultural tradition, eh? 😀

Told M’hijito about this idea. To my amazement, he didn’t seem especially exercised about it.

But he’s kind of a calm guy, in a lot of ways. Maybe he figured this is not something to make a big deal about.

Hell, maybe he figured I wasn’t serious.

We’ll see about that…

Meanwhile, the kitchen has stopped spinning, for the nonce. Hope it stays put awhile longer!

********

And…uhm…used Toyota Venzas are selling in the vicinity of 20 grand!  And UP!

Yow!!!!  Can you imagine? That would buy one helluva lot of Uber rides!!!

And Yet ANOTHER Wild-Eyed Radical Idea…

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Hmmmm…. If you read my past few posts, you’ll get the distinct impression that I’m in the middle of some kind of life-changing revelation. Changes to the left of me, changes to the right of me, wack-shit ideas pouring in from all directions. 

Well, it’s not quite that radical. But something has happened that presents the potential to make some major changes. And to save big, BIG bucks.

What happened?

My honored son pilfered my car out of my garage. Drove it off and locked it up in his garage. This apparently resulted from a) anger at me and b) some sincere concern that enough of my marbles have rolled out my ears that really…maybe I shouldn’t be driving.

Upshot: for the past two or three weeks, I’ve been doing without a car. In the 115-degree heat, we might add.

And y’know what’s happened?

Nothing. 

Got that?

Nothing. NOTHING, nary a disaster, nary even a noticeable inconvenience has happened. That’s what’s happened.

And…why hasn’t my world ended? Well…

It turns out that if you live in a sufficiently urbanized area, you very well may not need a car.

And why not????

BECAUSE… here in the city you have busses. You have taxicabs. You have trains. And you have reasonably safe streets leading to the nearest grocery and drugstores.

No kidding. Within easy walking distance, I have…

* A Sprouts
* A Walgreen’s
* An Albertson’s
* A Fry’s
* and an El Rancho

Got that? FOUR SUPERMARKETS(!!!!) and a drugstore within six blocks or less of the Funny Farm. Mostly less. Significantly less.

Furthermore, directly across the street from the Funny Farm, we have a guy who’s driving an Uber!

So if I don’t feel like walking a few hundred feet to the nearest store, I can hire the guy to haul me over there, and carry the groceries back here in his car!

My son probably thought he was inflicting some kind of disaster on me, in the moment that led up to this scheme.

But no.

What he was doing was creating a revelation. 

To wit: in a large city saturated with public transit AND with private taxi services, you don’t need a car!

Think o’ that.

And think  how much you spend on the damn car(s) in your garage and driveway, hm?

You could rent a LOT of Uber rides just for the insurance premiums on those tanks. Add in the car payments (if you’re still coughing them up), the gasoline, and the regular servicing and…hoooleeee mackerel!

Get rid of the rolling hole-in-the-ground-into-which-to-pour-money and you will save a TON of change!!!

You want a swell ride to go someplace special or take a vacation trip? Forgodsake, RENT one. There’s a car rental place less than three blocks from my house.

So. There’s the Question of the Day:

WHY HAVE WE BEEN SPENDING ALL THIS CASH ON A CAR PARKED IN OUR GARAGE OR DRIVEWAY?????

Why, indeed?

My car has been parked at M’hijito’s place for the past ten days or so. And y’know what?  I haven’t missed it!

So a New Plan is shaping up:

  • Have him sell the tank for me.
  • Bank the proceeds.
  • Convert the garage into an arts-and-craft workspace, and
  • Invite friends over to paint, draw, model clay, or whatever other artsy thing suits their fancy.

I might even rent the garage to an arts teacher to use as an artist’s studio.

From a hole in the ground into which to pour money
to
A money-making asset…
Mwa ha ha! 

Think o’ that!

Now that I’ve cleverly figured all this out (it only took…how many years??), I’m reminded that when DXH and I spent several months in London, we never bought or rented a car. We got around on foot or by public transit. Never did we feel especially inconvenienced.

Actually, that’s wrong: a couple of times we rented a car to go sight-seeing in the countryside. Never for longer than a day, though.

Why d’you suppose Americans feel we all must have cars?

Well: advertising and marketing, of course. But the truth is, going car-free may prove to be a hugely liberating experience. We shall soon see, eh?

Hotter than a three-dollar cookstove…

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…as my father used to say about the lovely weather in the garden spot that was Saudi Arabia.

As we scribble, the back-porch thermometer claims the temperature is 108 in the shade.

Yeah. That’s degrees Fahrenheit.

Ye gawds! It makes Arabia look balmy.

But…but…seriously: it’s 12:30 in the afternoon. Earlier in the day — shortly after the local grocers and farmacias opened, our li’l thermometer was already registering 102.

And yes, that does make Arabia look pretty balmy.

Fortunately, we have actual air-conditioning, rather than the gummy swamp-cooling that Aramco installed in its residents’ homes in Ras Tanura. Even then, it’s damn hot and sticky in here.

Nevertheless, the brain continues to run on overdrive. 

All sorts of original, clever, and…uhm..weird ideas are drifting through my overheated little mind. And in particular, the most significant ones have to do with my son’s adventurous liberation of my car.

Yes.

The garage remains empty.

And y’know what?

I’m finding I just…don’t…give…a…damn. 

This neighborhood is overrun with guys who wanna get rich quick driving for Uber. A nearly brand-new train runs down Main Drag West, one that would drop me off six safe and quiet residential blocks from my son’s house, if I chose to ride it. And the city busses cruise right past the intersection of the nearest feeder street and Central Avenue, which would take me to the front door of the beloved AJ’s market. Or let me off a block from the kid’s house.

Personally, I’d choose Uber if I knew they would show up reliably.

That doesn’t appear to be the case…but…but…yeah. I haven’t tested any such thesis. I will, in the future…probably the slightly cooler future. But if I do find they show up when they say they will, then…well…

Wanna buy a nice used Toyota Venza?

Yeah. Y’know what I think about this caper? That kid did me a huge favor. He’s helping me to get rid of a tank that needs to be serviced (expensively) every six months, that needs to have $3.00/gallon gas pumped into it every time you turn around, that takes up space in a garage that could be used for any number of better purposes, that pollutes the air, that….

Uhm…and how am I gonna get the dog to the vet, in an emergency?

Uber.

Or the kid. He still has his car. If Ruby has to be rushed to a veterinarian, he can come up here and collect her.

Or on foot. A 24-hour veterinary hospital is right down the road: about six or eight blocks, on foot. She weighs all of 25 pounds: I can easily pick her up and carry her there.

Meanwhile, check out these contraptions! I happen to have one of these. As we scribble, it’s now all tricked out with cardboard panels, the easier to haul stuff without dropping anything.

Here in the ‘Hood, we’ve got not one, not two, but three major supermarkets within walking distance: a Fry’s, a Sprouts, and an Albertson’s. I can do most or all of my grocery shopping on foot, without ever leaving the neighborhood. And right across the street dwells an Uber driver. Matter of fact, we’re told the ‘Hood is over-run with Uber drivers.

Heh! I haven’t tested that hypothesis. But it wouldn’t take a mob of wannabe cab drivers to provide plenty of transportation to the nearby shopping. 

And all these years I’ve been paying…for WHAT?

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Thanks to my son’s recent sh!tfit, I’ve made a huge discovery:

For lo! these many years, I’ve been paying through the schnozola for that damn car sitting out there in the garage, little guessing that in truth, I can get wherever I want to go in lovely uptown Phoenix for less than it costs to own a car… No, make that For one HELLUVA lot less than it costs to own a car!

Owning a car ain’t cheap, here in the Big City. Especially if you’re a person who does not know how to service your own car: change its oil, charge its battery, rotate its tires, whatnot whatnot and whatnot.

What if…yeah, what if? 

You rent a car only when you need it? Take it back to the rental agency when you’re done with it, and they change the oil and fill the gas tank and see that the windshield wipers work and test and fill the tires and…on and freakin’ ON. They pay for the licensing. They pay for the annual inspection…

Hmmmmmm…. What HAVE we been missing in this picture?

A lot. A whole lot, my friends. And the Kid’s recent revenge maneuver — kiping my car and locking it into his garage — has suddenly made those missing details blindingly clear.

Suddenly, if I want to go someplace right this minute, all I’ve got to do is tell the Uber driver who lives across the street that I need a ride. If he can’t take me where I need to go, he sure can make a ride materialize.

Huh. Think o’ that. Imagine not having to pony up a chunk of dough to have the car serviced. Or to register it with the state. Or to run it through the car wash. Or whatEVER.

I knew that kid was brilliant, but this is ridiculous!

😀

Seriously: What he’s done points in a VERY interesting direction.

What if you stopped driving your car and rode the bus or streetcar instead? Would that not leave you plenty of spare change to afford a taxicab for occasions when you need to be someplace reliably at a specific time? Like…PLENTY of spare change!

Yea verily: how much money have we wasted, you & I, on buying, owning, and running cars? 

How much more does a tank of gas cost than an Uber ride across the city, from (say) the ASU campus in Glendale, Arizona, to the main university campus in Tempe?

And…can a city kid get by without owning a car?

***

My mother and I lived in San Francisco for two or three years after we came back from Arabia. She rented us a place in an apartment development called Parkmerced.

My father would never have been without a car — it was one of the things the man lived for. But he went to sea: was regularly gone for weeks at a time. And…hmmmm…WHERE was his vaunted Chrysler?

Yeah. On the sixth floor of Parkmerced’s underground garage, that’s where.

About the only things we used that car for were to drive to the docks to pick up my father when his ship was in, and to drive across the Bay Bridge to visit my mother’s family in Berkeley or Sausalito.

So…I think this history brings up the same question that M’hijito has raised:

  • DO you really need a car when you live in an urban setting?

And that question poses a whole slew of other interesting queries…

  • Could you not do just as well riding in Uber cabs or on busses and trains?
  • Do you really need to ride any conveyance when you’re going to a store three or four blocks from your front door? Why?
  • Over the course of, say, a month, how much does it cost to walk to a store or ride a bus, compared to maintaining a car during the same period?
  • How much are you paying in taxes to keep that rolling tin can in your garage?
  • And how much in insurance bills?
  • And in gasoline?

Maybe, just maybe, the kid has got something. Eh?

7:00 a.m.: The Moron Hour

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Why IS it that every  moron on the planet turns out of their house at 7 in the morning? With their dog, o’course!

Just back from the morning DoggyWalk. Nasty morning: hot, overcast, and wet. Back porch thermometer registers a mere 85 degrees.

Days like this, sometimes rain just coalesces out of the air. Don’t even need clouds to make it rain!

Welp, that doesn’t seem to be happening today…not yet, anyway. Wunderground predicts a 15% chance of rain and just now registers an ambient temperature of 85 degrees. Not very hot. But yeah: damp, that’s for sure.

Ruby never seems fazed by a soggy atmosphere. Maybe the thick furry coat protects her, to some degree from the elements: whether cold and wet or hot and wet.

At this hour, everybody and their little brother, sister,, and grandmother is out tromping around with their dawg. And they just don’t seem to get it that “they just want to pwaaaayyy” doesn’t apply to your dog. No, stupid… my dog just wants to rip their dog’s throat out. 

After you tell them to please keep their dog back and they refuse to do so, they get all peeved when your dog goes in for the kill.

Speaking of dogs, M’hijito bought a puppy yesterday, to replace his beloved old white golden retriever who croaked over a few days ago.

Oh, my, what a little cutie! And the parents were also white retrievers, so this one will grow up to look a lot like the Late, Great Jake.

I should call him — the kid, that is, not the dawg — and see if he’d like me to bring something over for lunch from the AJ’s deli. That would be pleasant…and an excuse to see the new pup. 😉

***

Meanwhile: ugh!  My hip is spavined and hurts like Hell.

Years ago, the Late, Great Dr. Daley — one of the finest GPs ever to walk the surface of the Earth — told me that someday I’d have to get surgery on that hip. Looks like the Someday has arrived.

Just what I need: surgery, and then weeks in the hospital recuperating and going through endless physical therapy. Whee…I can hardly wait.

Could I even walk from AJ’s to M’jito’s just now? Probably: once I get going, the gait seems to move along OK. The problem, I think, would be trapping a bus, getting down to Central & Camelback, and then hiking to the Kid’s place.

Dunno. A guy across the street has taken up the Uber business. I may ask him to drive me down to the store…and maybe for a few extra bucks he could be persuaded to stick around long enough to schlep me from the AJ’s to the Kid’s house.

The Uber thing looks like quite the little Godsend. I’ve only tried it once, but it really was The Business! The guy showed up at my house right away, schlepped me across the city, and then showed up again at the dentist’s office to schlep me home.

Truth to tell, it really may be that Phoenix has turned into enough of a Big City that you could live here without owning a car. M’hijito would like to get rid of mine — apparently he thinks that at 80 I’ve reached such a state of decrepitude I’m not safe to be driving. And I’ll tellya: if I knew for sure that a car would show up when I call for it — and show up in a timely manner — I’d agree with him.

But…well…that is something that I don’t know. Actually, to the contrary: I do know…a cab is not gonna show up on time when you need it. Period. This ain’t San Francisco, folks: this is Phoenix.

And no: dyed-in-the-wool Phoenicians do not ride cabs.