Coffee heat rising

Automobiles

What Next, Then?

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Okay…no sign of Pool Dude. That’s not surprising, though. We’ve arrived at a Saturday in one of the hottest months of a Phoenix year. If you were a Pool Dude, would you be busily running from backyard to backyard?

So presumably, it’ll be Monday before the mess gets cleaned up. At the soonest: that calculation depends on the assumption that he hasn’t decided to can his freelance pool-cleaning business. The mess: remains of palm fronds, with their accompanying burden of dust and dirt, dropped into the drink when Gerardo’s boys climbed up there last week to prune the accursed palm trees.

My neighbor drained her pool. It’s been empty since she moved in, several years ago. And y’know…hmmmmm….it’s a thought.

Personally, I like the pool too much to convert it to a hole in the ground in which to breed mosquitoes. If I didn’t expect Pool Dude would show up at any minute, I’d be out there in the altogether, loafing in the cool water right now. Or at least sipping coffee and listening to the birds carrying on in the brush that surrounds the thing.

And speaking of those from whom we have no word: Mijito still has the Dog Chariot and is emitting no sign of returning it.

And y’know what?

Hang onto your hat….

The longer he keeps THAT hole in the ground into which to pour money, the less likely I am to demand to get it back.

No kidding.

I had no idea how easy it would be to get by without a rolling cash-burner. And that is in the middle of an Arizona summer, when it’s hotter than Hell and a bitch to move around outside. Not only that, it’s an assessment that has occurred before I’ve even started to take advantage of the new public transit system here. Two blocks from my front door we have a kewl, shiny, sleek light-rail train, gliding past silently on shiny new train tracks.

So the question arises, like Marley’s ghost slithering through the window: Why do I want to own a car?

Several times a day, that spook materializes and moans again: Why do I want to own a car?

And y’know what? About 99% of the time, I don’t have a good answer to that question.

Truth to tell: as I sit here, only about three or four things that I need to do would be majorly facilitated with a car…and that’s in 114-degree heat. Let the weather cool off, and you can cut that list to two or three.

1. I do need to go by the pool store and get Harvey fixed.

But y’know what else? I’m gonna foist that job on Pool Dude. Let him earn his pay, by gawd. Let me loaf, as I deserve to loaf.

2. I crave another bottle of halfway decent white wine.

But y’know what further else? That object can be had at the local Albertson’s (about three blocks to the south), at the Sprouts (two blocks down the street and across Main Drag West), at our vast Mexican supermarket (two blocks to the north), and at the local liquor store (a block to the north and a block to the east). So…uhm…I should own a $35,000 rolling hole in the asphalt into which to dump money?  Really?

3. If anything happens to Ruby — she gets sick, she eats an oleander, whatEVER — she will need to be seen by a vet ASAP.

But y’know what? M’hijito has a car and always will, at least until he reaches retirement age. In a real emergency, he can schlep the dog to a vet. But why break up his work day, when an Uber driver lives right across the street? Very likely that guy or one of his colleagues could whip us over to the nearest vet in a matter of minutes… Hmmm…for a lot less than 35 grand…whaddaya bet?

See what I mean? There really may not be much of a reason to own a car here in lovely North Phoenix, other than

* ego trip; and
* convenience.

The “convenience” part is balanced away by the repeated (and increasingly expensive) trips to gas stations, by the regular visits to the Toyota place for maintenance, by the taxes on the damn thing… Hmmm….

Really, you hafta wonder: why do any Americans keep their own cars? At the very least, why do any Americans who live free of commuting keep the damn things?

Balmy Afternoon…

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5:00 p.m., Tuesday, June 17

…and…

It’s 108 degrees in the shade of the back porch!

My son, the redoubtable Caligula, still has my car. I guess he thinks he’s protecting me from myself.

Since I have exactly zero desire to go bucketing around in 108-degree heat, he can keep the damn thing. In the meantime, if the outdoor temp were reasonable, I’d have an eight-minute walk to the nearest grocery store. So…I don’t feel very concerned about it.

What am I gonna do about this latest Act of Arrogance, though?

Really, I haven’t decided. In theory, he has stolen my car. But…you can be sure I’m not about to press car theft charges against my son.

Sooo…we’re brought around to the question of do I care whether he’s glommed the car?

And y’know…the truth of the matter is probably not. Yes, I would like to get the money for it: it’s worth a few tens of thousands of dollars.

But y’know…the whole truth of the matter is that his li’l act of arrogance has demonstrated, spectacularly, that I don’t really need a car.

The neighbor across the street drives an Uber. He’ll take me wherever I please; and what the heck? If he’s not available, some other Uber or actual cab driver will be. I’m within easy walking distance of a Sprouts, an Albertson’s (huge supermarket), an El Rancho (downscale supermarket), an AJ’s (upscale supermarket), a Target, a Walgreen’s…and on and on. In other words, I don’t need a car for normal, day-to-day routine life!

Truth to tell,  I don’t need a car at all. Certainly not for everyday use. And…if something comes up that I do need a vehicle, there’s a place that rents cars within walking distance.

My inclination is not to retrieve that car of mine, and not to buy another car. Let the kid pay the taxes on it! 😉

Seriously: don’t replace that hole in the asphalt into which to pour money. Instead, hire drivers to schlep me around, and rent a car if a day comes that I really need one.

That need isn’t likely to last more than a day or three. And so…why own a car and pay taxes on it if you can provide for yourself more economically?

Heh heh!!!  If my father heard this line of reasoning, he’d think I really have gone balmy. 

BONK! And this didn’t occur to me…WHY?

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Y’know…having lived in sprawling Southwestern cities all of my adult life, this factoid never occurred to me. But…y’know what? YOU DON’T NEED A CAR TO LIVE IN A CITY LIKE PHOENIX.

Early adolescence in San Francisco, taught me that…well…yeah. You don’t need a car to live conveniently in the City, as my mother and I used to call SF. San Francisco has (or had, at the time) premier public transit. You’d never wait more than ten or fifteen minutes for a bus or train to come by.

But Phoenix, a hub of blue-collar dorkishness, is NOT like San Francisco. Not even close. Phoenix is more like Los Angeles. Or Long Beach, where I had the un-privilege of spending my high-school years. Wherever you’re goin’ in Southern California, you can’t get there from here…not without a car.

To the extent that Phoenix and L.A. have trains, you don’t wanna ride on them…not unless you enjoy being pestered by panhandlers and oversexed bums. Yeah, there are busses, but by and large they don’t run on time, they’re filthy, and they also tend to harbor folks that you prefer not get too close to you. (“Too close” being “in the same county….”)

But…

Over the past week or ten days, I’ve made two disoveries that change ALL of that:

a) You don’t need a car; AND
b) You don’t have to ride on the off-putting public transit, either.

Why?

BECAUSE OF UBER. 

Turns out that during the past few months and years, Uber has become an enormous success here.

Yeah. You can get from  Point A to Point B in a private car, hired out by its owner to Uber, for less than a taxicab costs. The cars are clean, you feel reasonably safe in them, they show up in a timely way, and the cost is within reason.

Not only that, but a guy who drives for Uber lives three houses down the street from me!  And he’s not the only Uber driver in the general vicinity.

Dayum!

This changes everything. 

****

My son got mad at me and, in consequence, he stole my car. It’s parked at his house — presumably locked inside his garage.

I do not feel like bickering with him, so I decided, in a phrase, ohhh fu*k it! Let him have the damn thing.

And that’s when I discovered that Uber is everywhere. Even three houses down the road. No kidding. One of the neighbors is driving for Uber!

I can easily get from just about any Point A to just about any Point B (or C, or D, or whatEVER), and with a cell phone, I can call Uber from anywhere. 

And y’know what? Just now the only reason I want that car back is so I can sell it to some other sucker!

She’s b-a-a-c-k again…for the nonce

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The li’l computer is back online…just now. We’ll see how long that lasts. /eyeroll/

Several hours of galloping from pillar to post finally brought us to a store that could fix it: not surprisingly, an Apple store. This one, in a large shopping mall on the northwest side. So now this unit is operative.

When we got back to the Funny Farm, though, the big old desktop was acting up.

My son sat down to it and worked on it and worked on it and worked on it….  Several hours of working on the damn thing left us both short of temper. The upshot of that: a fine shouting match.

Once that got started, we both started getting madder and madder. He just roared out the door in a raging fit of high dudgeon. I, meanwhile, sink into a slough of stupidity…nothing I say helps, because I’m incapable of saying anything that helps.

The laptop still isn’t working right. I have no car, and so I can’t take it out tomorrow. There’s a computer store about six blocks away — my son abominates the place. Abomination or no, I guess I’ll have to take the thing there, even though my son has forbidden me to do so. (He hates the place, because it’s a hole-in-the-wall into which to stuff money.)

Without a car, I’m pretty helpless: if a destination isn’t within a couple of miles, I can’t get there.

What to do next?

 

Now What???

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In a moment of misguided chumminess, I lent my laptop to a business acquaintance. This is a guy I’ve known for years, outwardly very professional, a successful chiropractor by trade.

Bad move! Among other antics, he contrived to break the computer, rendering it nonfunctional. My son has taken it to a computer store, in hopes of getting it fixed…but that hope ain’t one I hold out.

Can’t afford to buy another one. That unit was tax-deductible, purchased when I used it mostly for the editorial business. Now that I’ve pretty much retired from that gig and from teaching, I get no break on its cost. And my son is more than ever convinced that I’m crazy, largely because of long-standing friendship with Mr. Computer Vandal.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago my car was trashed, when I rear-ended some woman on a dark, wet, rainy road.

Now I’m banned from driving (by the Kid) and so have to walk to the stores. I do still have a driver’s license…but no vehicle! He has glommed it and stashed it at his house…rather too far to reach without a car.

Luckily, the ‘Hood is richly endowed with neighborhood stores and chains: Sprouts, Albertson’s, Fry’s, Walgreen’s, Bookman’s, and a cute little liquor store in which to feel righteous by “buying local” when scoring a bottle of wine.

Dunno which way to jump just now. I could sneak around and rent a car. But frankly, that seems like more trouble than it’s worth. In the first place, I don’t want to go behind M’hijto’s back, no matter how unreasonable I think his driving ban is. Plus…about three houses down the street, a neighbor has gone into the Uber business. If I would get off my duff long enough to contact him, I could probably get him or one of his colleagues to drive me just about everywhere I need to go.

One damnfool thing after another, eh?

Yet to decide whether to pursue the scheme to convert the garage, now empty, into an art studio. Probably not: sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. Still…hmmmmm…. I do like it as an idea.

 

{click!} On Cars: WHY have I never figured this out???

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My son, in the midst of a peculiarly annoying quarrel, grabbed my keys and made off with my car.

Yes. The only car I have.

Oh eek! Oh augh! Ohhhh gawd, what’ll I do?

Right?

Welp…maybe not.

Maybe, just maybe this is an occasion for celebrating. Because, incredibly enough, it has brought about an Insight of the first water.

Know what? Here in the Big City, I don’t need a car. Occasionally I do need access to a vehicle with four wheels and an engine. Very occasionally. In fact, those occasions are so rare and the alternatives to owning a motorized beast  are so inexpensive that, f’rgodsake, I could afford to rent a Mercedes whenever I feel in the mood.

Seriously.

There are three major grocery markets within easy walking distance of my house. Add to those a hardware store, several restaurants, a computer store, a bookstore, a wine shop…on and on.  And also a place where I could rent a car, if absolutely necessary. A train line runs north and south, with a stop about a block from the house. And Uber drivers are standing by to sell you a ride, too.

WHY have I been spending all that money on owning and insuring a rolling tin can?????

Yes, it’s convenient to have a car outside your kitchen door. But a phone call will bring an Uber right to your front door. Just now we’re coming up on the hottest season of the year in Phoenix. But at 8:20 in the morning, it’s balmy enough outside. Right now I could walk to the Albertson’s and back without raising a sweat.

Admittedly, I do own a rolling cart. This allows me to transport bags 0r boxes of groceries without having to lug them in my hands. Admittedly, the potential for PITA is there…  But…but…a rollee cart is one helluva lot cheaper than a gas-guzzler. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to operate. And you don’t have to insure it.

Somethin’ to think about, ain’t it?

What would I do with that vast two-car garage?

One idea is to convert it into an art studio.  Year-round: it’s air-conditioned. Or I could rent it to someone who wants to give art lessons. A half-dozen friends could draw and paint in that space.

Of course, the space could always be used for storage. Problem with that idea: I don’t have much junk to stash.

Leave the side door to the backyard open, and lo! It becomes the biggest dog house in the nation. Ruby the Corgi will love it. So will the coyotes, I expect.

😀

Seriously: getting rid of the car just might not be that bad, as ideas go.

  • It would save a ton of money.
  • It would repurpose part of the house.
  • It could create an income source, in the form of art studio rental.
  • It could open the door to new friendships.

Interesting…