Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Fun, Fun, Fun
G and I were talking last night about hanging out. I’m on the wrong side of the GTA, and as such, visiting people takes a lot of planning. When I lived in Edmonton, if I felt like visiting someone for coffee or whatever all I had to do was walk around the corner. Here if I want to have coffee with someone I have to borrow a transponder and drive for an hour. It just doesn’t seem worth it for a two-dollar cup of coffee, if I’m going to drive out there I want an event, and possibly a parade.
We decided that I need to make friends who are closer, and it’s so true. She suggested I create flyers to attract young, like-minded people to my cause. Then we wondered if that might not be taken the wrong way. In this way the Giant Mocha Orgy was born. We’ll take over a Second Cup close by and we’ll smear caramel corretto all over each other, then we will take turns licking it off. This will probably be our second meeting, because meeting one will be “get-to-know-you” games. “Think of an adjective that has the same letter as the first letter of your name, then repeat everyone’s name and their descriptor who came before you! Ready? Okay!”
It’s fun to have a car to be selective about. I got my first car ever in March, before that I contented myself (if that’s possible) with public transit and mooching off family. There are so many wonderful perks to having a car. I never have to listen to anything I don’t want to hear on the radio - I am in control. I can leave parties or gatherings whenever I want. I can put obnoxious stuffed animals in the windows, Kleenex boxes in the back seat, and novelty mud flaps with Winnie the Pooh or Taz on them if I so choose. As the captain of this vessel, my word is law.
It’s nice to be able to go wherever I want whenever I want, though I rarely seem to. As is the case with driving an hour to have coffee with someone, sure I CAN, but is it a good idea to? Not necessarily, and it’s not just a laziness factor, there’s a cheapness factor as well. Gas is expensive, so is maintenance, insurance, and my vanity plates.
Predictably, my family had some interesting cars growing up. I don’t remember all of them, just my favourites, but my parents did have a tale or two of the cars they drove when they were growing up. My mother’s were the best. She drove a Gremlin and a Roadrunner, I believe, as well as a Nash Metropolitan. The Nash Metropolitan will always be funny because of Dave Barry, who wrote about the cars his father used to drive, among which the Metropolitan features prominently. Dave Barry is a funny, funny man.
We used to have a Dodge Dart. It was a bilious green colour, and was not the most reliable of cars, but my father liked it. We also had a gray Ford Ltd. Station wagon, which was later dubbed the “war wagon” by some of Val’s friends. It certainly looked like it had been through a war.
During highschool Val and I drove to school in a black 1999 Ford Mustang, which was pretty cool right up until I crashed it. One day Val was going to pick our father up from work, and he was looking pretty swanky. It was a warm spring day and he was wearing shades and had the window rolled down. He was likely listening to 102.1, the Edge, which was THE radio station for angst-ridden angry teenage music. He told the story to us later, and I kicked myself for not having been there, he pulled a cigarette from the pack and put it in his mouth while he waited at a light. The other people waiting likely weren’t paying attention, so when he brought the lighter up to the cigarette and flicked it they didn’t see the two-foot jet of flame that shot from the lighter directly up his nose. The cigarette flew from his mouth, and the sunglasses were knocked unceremoniously from his head as he clamped his hands to his scorched nose and howled. I like to imagine that the light turned just then and someone honked at him to hurry up.
Everyone who’s taken public transit, even if it was only one time, has got a story. I have used public transit in many countries for a great many years, and it doesn’t really bother me that much. The wait is horrible but if you have a book or a Discman you can live with it. It’s certainly much nicer to be reading than staring at the back of someone’s bumper wishing death upon him or her and all of its descendants. I was on a bus in Edmonton one day when two women were having a very loud argument about whether one of the women was disturbed enough to be attending a schizophrenia support group. It seems to me that if someone is willing to make a case for their inclusion, that they should be allowed to attend.
One thing that never failed to astonish me about using public transit was people talking on their cell phones. “Hi, I’m on the bus. THE BUS. Yeah. We just turned a corner. Now we’re stopping. What? Oh. About fifteen minutes.” I felt so privileged to be included in their day as, I’m sure, did the rest of the commuting population.
So the long and short of it is that I’m glad to have a car, and I appreciate it. I waited almost three decades before having my own means of transportation. This doesn’t mean that I’ll never take public transit again, far from it, driving in downtown Toronto eats, but it’s nice to know that if I feel the need to drive to Guelph for coffee, I can!
G and I were talking last night about hanging out. I’m on the wrong side of the GTA, and as such, visiting people takes a lot of planning. When I lived in Edmonton, if I felt like visiting someone for coffee or whatever all I had to do was walk around the corner. Here if I want to have coffee with someone I have to borrow a transponder and drive for an hour. It just doesn’t seem worth it for a two-dollar cup of coffee, if I’m going to drive out there I want an event, and possibly a parade.
We decided that I need to make friends who are closer, and it’s so true. She suggested I create flyers to attract young, like-minded people to my cause. Then we wondered if that might not be taken the wrong way. In this way the Giant Mocha Orgy was born. We’ll take over a Second Cup close by and we’ll smear caramel corretto all over each other, then we will take turns licking it off. This will probably be our second meeting, because meeting one will be “get-to-know-you” games. “Think of an adjective that has the same letter as the first letter of your name, then repeat everyone’s name and their descriptor who came before you! Ready? Okay!”
It’s fun to have a car to be selective about. I got my first car ever in March, before that I contented myself (if that’s possible) with public transit and mooching off family. There are so many wonderful perks to having a car. I never have to listen to anything I don’t want to hear on the radio - I am in control. I can leave parties or gatherings whenever I want. I can put obnoxious stuffed animals in the windows, Kleenex boxes in the back seat, and novelty mud flaps with Winnie the Pooh or Taz on them if I so choose. As the captain of this vessel, my word is law.
It’s nice to be able to go wherever I want whenever I want, though I rarely seem to. As is the case with driving an hour to have coffee with someone, sure I CAN, but is it a good idea to? Not necessarily, and it’s not just a laziness factor, there’s a cheapness factor as well. Gas is expensive, so is maintenance, insurance, and my vanity plates.
Predictably, my family had some interesting cars growing up. I don’t remember all of them, just my favourites, but my parents did have a tale or two of the cars they drove when they were growing up. My mother’s were the best. She drove a Gremlin and a Roadrunner, I believe, as well as a Nash Metropolitan. The Nash Metropolitan will always be funny because of Dave Barry, who wrote about the cars his father used to drive, among which the Metropolitan features prominently. Dave Barry is a funny, funny man.
We used to have a Dodge Dart. It was a bilious green colour, and was not the most reliable of cars, but my father liked it. We also had a gray Ford Ltd. Station wagon, which was later dubbed the “war wagon” by some of Val’s friends. It certainly looked like it had been through a war.
During highschool Val and I drove to school in a black 1999 Ford Mustang, which was pretty cool right up until I crashed it. One day Val was going to pick our father up from work, and he was looking pretty swanky. It was a warm spring day and he was wearing shades and had the window rolled down. He was likely listening to 102.1, the Edge, which was THE radio station for angst-ridden angry teenage music. He told the story to us later, and I kicked myself for not having been there, he pulled a cigarette from the pack and put it in his mouth while he waited at a light. The other people waiting likely weren’t paying attention, so when he brought the lighter up to the cigarette and flicked it they didn’t see the two-foot jet of flame that shot from the lighter directly up his nose. The cigarette flew from his mouth, and the sunglasses were knocked unceremoniously from his head as he clamped his hands to his scorched nose and howled. I like to imagine that the light turned just then and someone honked at him to hurry up.
Everyone who’s taken public transit, even if it was only one time, has got a story. I have used public transit in many countries for a great many years, and it doesn’t really bother me that much. The wait is horrible but if you have a book or a Discman you can live with it. It’s certainly much nicer to be reading than staring at the back of someone’s bumper wishing death upon him or her and all of its descendants. I was on a bus in Edmonton one day when two women were having a very loud argument about whether one of the women was disturbed enough to be attending a schizophrenia support group. It seems to me that if someone is willing to make a case for their inclusion, that they should be allowed to attend.
One thing that never failed to astonish me about using public transit was people talking on their cell phones. “Hi, I’m on the bus. THE BUS. Yeah. We just turned a corner. Now we’re stopping. What? Oh. About fifteen minutes.” I felt so privileged to be included in their day as, I’m sure, did the rest of the commuting population.
So the long and short of it is that I’m glad to have a car, and I appreciate it. I waited almost three decades before having my own means of transportation. This doesn’t mean that I’ll never take public transit again, far from it, driving in downtown Toronto eats, but it’s nice to know that if I feel the need to drive to Guelph for coffee, I can!
Comments:
re: bus adventures. reminded me of the time when a man masturbated on the bus in front of me on a hot summer day some years ago while en route to work. anything is truly possible. needless to say, work that day was troubling: city life.
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