Not the First Time, Probably the Last

[tablesaw]

Yesterday, I drove to work, and took the metro home. This was not a fancy way of commuting—it was me being an idiot.

This has happened before, and yesterday's story was similar in many ways to the earlier one. Except this time, instead of leaving right after work, I dawdled in the office for over thirty minutes (long enough for the meter to expire before I even left the building. Then I made it all the way home; I even managed to start taking off my work clothes. And yet, it was still thinking about buying bread for ojouchan that reminded me that Oh shit, I need to go get my car back and it's probably been towed.

By the time I got back to the car, it had been illegally parked downtown for ninety minutes.

And I still didn't get a ticket!

---

I don't think this is ever going to happen again, because I can't imagine any situation where I'd be driving to work now that I'm on the day shift. The traffic is terrible, the parking rates are astronomical, and the metro runs fast enough that missing a train doesn't mean I'm half an hour late. So that's yet another tribulation I'm bidding adieu.

Comments

[cnoocy]

So are you going to be radically reducing your car usage in general?

[tablesaw]

I wouldn't say so; I've been gradually reducing it ever since I moved from the suburban San Fernando Valley to pedestrian-amenable Hollywood. Back when I stopped commuting by car last year, I found out that my commute was the part of my driving that used the least gas. (I drove entirely on freeways with little to no traffic.) Instead, I wasted much more gas on trying to drive around my neighborhood when the traffic hit the streets, something I usually avoided by doing errands in the morning.

So I expect my car usage is going to be about the same. I think it's low enough, now, that I would benefit from a car-sharing service, but Los Angeles doesn't have one.

[kalmn]

thank you-- i parked on the street this am and had forgotten to move my car at lunch. doh!

[yeloson]

Maybe you need to send yourself an email before driving to work:

"DROVE TODAY. GET CAR."