Gassing Up

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

No, I’ve not yet written about Vegas yet. In fact, I’m still trying to get caught up on stuff I expected to do while there.

Yes, I actually thought I would get work done in Sin City.

I hope to have a Vegas post by tomorrow. For today I’m running an old favorite I ran across a couple of weeks ago, written late last summer after an entire three months of not gassing up the car.

Please think good thoughts for Blogger Dad and his family who are ill, and please vote for me for the Good Mood Blogger Gig. Yesterday was the best day so far and made me think we can do this, but we do have to work together. Votes can be cast once per day.

THANKS and I’ll see you tomorrow!

I had to gas up yesterday.

It made me sad.

It wasn’t because of the expense, though I did pay with a fifty and couldn’t quite tip the tank of the Toyota. It was because back in early June, Cindy and I made a bet with ourselves.

A bet we both lost.

Mia’s Immersion program is on the other side of town, as is Max’s pre-school. Our schedule requires us to burn through fuel even faster than coffee. With only two weeks left of schlepping, Cindy and I decided to see if we could go the entire summer without gassing up once.

Well we certainly tried and almost made it.

Though we did leave the house nearly every day, even Max could count the number of times we opened the car door. There is a wide array of reasons we opted not to roll through summer.

Here are a few

The price of gas is ridiculous. Last May, our gas budget swallowed our entertainment budget. That’s like buying a ticket to a show and waiting outside. Mia’s program is amazing, and free, so it’s easy enough to consider the cost of fuel as cheap tuition. That logic loses wings in summer.

Because we can. All eight of our legs are in perfect working order, and we live downtown in a reasonably sized city. We prefer to get all our laziness done on Sunday. Monday through Friday there isn’t any reason we can’t walk to 90% of the places we need to go. The grocery store, library, movie theater, book store, ice-cream, etc.

Miles are like dollars; sometimes they must felt. Just as constantly using a credit card dulls the concept of money, getting inside a vehicle to travel further than three blocks, distorts the space between A and B. In our family we rarely use credit cards and often prefer to walk. We want for our children to feel the distance, and understand it in terms that go well beyond the number of traffic lights.

Outside the car you witness the beauty of life through a different lens. Humanity looks different blurring by at thirty-five miles an hour. In a car you’re a tourist, but on the street a citizen. Behind the wheel I could never see the steam ascending a coffee cup as it loses it’s thick to the crisp air, sailing from the lips of a quiet man lost in solitude. I would miss shadows wrinkling as the electric train idles in front of city hall and pedestrians in suits, both cheap and expensive, express displeasure at having to wait.

Our children also see these things. I know because we discuss them.

Our walks are wonderful. We hold hands and look both ways. We ask questions and wait for answers. We anticipate our destination and feel the reward on arrival.

I’m glad we went the summer without waiting in line for gas. It made me wonder why we even need two cars. We most often travel in a tribe and the rare use of both vehicles at the same time reduces a necessity into a luxury.

There has been an awful lot of commotion about the mounting price of gas. Perhaps eight dollars a gallon wouldn’t be the end of the world. Maybe it would be a kind of new beginning.

Writer Dad

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Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

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