When I was courting Amy I grandly told her we could live without a car. She merely batted her eyelashes at me and whispered sweet nothings in my ear, while we played 'padunk and padiddle' along Highway Two in her mother's car. And if you've never played that particular kissing game, I feel sorry for you!
Of course Amy had no intention of diving into married life as a pedestrian, so she arranged for her parents to 'give' us their blue Ford station wagon as a wedding gift. Suddenly I was in hock to them for 3000 bucks. But I simply grinned and paid them off in monthly installments. A lover and his money are quickly parted.
I guess it's unrealistic to think of raising a family in America without a car. But car payments and repair bills, not to mention gas and oil, kept us broke -- I'm not exaggerating when I say probably a fifth of my monthly income was paid out for car related issues.
I hated that. We had a series of old clunkers that ran fitfully and sullenly for several months and then would give up the ghost just when we had a family vacation planned or I needed to drive to an important circus gig 500 miles away.
I have not owned or driven a car in over a dozen years. (We won't go into the fact that I had my driver's license revoked a dozen years ago for back child support -- I wonder if they still do that nowadays? It was pretty draconian, lemme tell ya.) And I don't miss car ownership at all. (Says the man who mooches rides shamelessly from his kids and neighbors.)
When it comes to private transportation, such as cars and trucks, I am a dyed in the wool anarchist. My sincere hope is that Ford and GM and all those other momsers will go extinct during the pandemic, and private transportation will become not only onerous in the extreme, but criminal as well. I long for the day when we all can take public transportation to wherever we need to go, or get cheap Uber rides. Which means, I guess, I am ripe for the Laughing Academy.
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