I really hate driving a car. I don’t do it very often.. maybe 20 miles a week, at most. Usually to help out family. Driving a car in traffic, in the city, along side 3 million other idiots (including myself), makes me feel sick, anxious, unhappy, and ungrounded. The entire experience of driving in the city is one of pure insanity to me.
This morning, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that a “person” has opened the gas tank on my truck and siphoned out it’s contents. This happened some years back as well.. While living in my van in Salt Lake City, working a construction job, I awoke, at 5 am, to the Van being rustled violently to the effect of 2 dudes wrestling the 5 gallon gerry can of gas off the back of said van. This can was my “fuel gauge”. Since the fuel gauge on the vehicle did not work, I would simply allow it to run dry, pull over, run a siphon hose from the can to the tank, which were right next to one another, and then get on down the road. It worked like a charm for years. That early morning theft cost me 100 smackeroos.
Gasoline, right now, if I am not mistaken, is rising rapidly towards 5 bucks a gallon. When people walk into the bike shop and complain that a bicycle starts at 3 or 400 dollars and goes up rapidly, it completely blows my mind. These same folks drop 100 bucks a week into there gas tanks alone. Not to mention maintenance, tires, insurance, parking, and of course the absolutely splendid experience of getting the opportunity to drive one of these luxuries along side several of your 3 million best, angry friends! What a bargain! On top of that, the last time I a took even a casual glance at the cost of buying an automobile, they seemed to generally start at around 3000 bucks for a used one.
Admittedly, my Surly Ogre, which I built myself, every spoke and bearing, cost nearing 4 grand, but to complain that a used, quality commuter might cost a few hundred bucks is, without a doubt, completely absurd, and in my humble opinion, exactly what is wrong with the mentality of Americans today. Walmart and Target are doing more to perpetuate this lie than most.. They sell “bicycles” for 70 bucks that fall apart before you can load it into your trunk and do absolutely nothing to further the notion that the bicycle might have some real merit in this culture by rejecting the people who make said purchases and furthering their concept that the auto is greater than the bicycle.
This is extremely unfortunate.
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