May 19, 2002
rationalizing sin
A considerate reader pointed out that despite my claims of carpool lane benefit associated with the purchase of a Toyota Prius, California State does not in fact grant the much coveted Carpool designation to hybrids. Somewhat incredulous, I investigated online. Surely he must have been mistaken? After all, I saw quite a few single-passenger hybrids spitting down the carpool lane in the middle of rush hour on 101. However, it turned out that my astute reader was quite correct: California State does not consider the hybrid to be a Carpool Vehicle.
"If you wait long enough though," the reader pointed out, "Honda's coming out with a hybrid Civic."
I started to reply back to him with thanks for the new info -- learning about the hybrid-carpool thing was good, since it lets me look all clever and stuff later during really dull dinner conversation with complete strangers, ("So, you're an accountant at Arthur Anderson? How's that working out for you? And hey, did you know that hybrid cars aren't Carpool Vehicles?") -- and then went down this long and sticky path of self-justification over my impending purchase of a (gag) mini-(gag)-SUV.
It occurred to me in the middle of the email that I really have absolutely no justifications for purchasing Lebin's old car, besides the fact that it's practically brand new with the exception of the 75,000 miles he's put on it. There's barely a ding on the paint, and the interior of the car has been covered in plastic pretty much since the day he bought it. In fact, the only real reason I have for buying it is that it's cheap at $9000, somewhat outside the original range I'd had in mind for a car but still fairly reasonable for all that.
In fact, I don't think it's even possible to buy a working car for $6.17, so while disappointed, I'm not overly distraught over having gone outside my original car budget.
Anyway, it seemed to me that I really should have some sound reasons for making a purchase of this size and magnitude. I promptly sat down and wrote up a few, which I now present for your approval.
1. I AM PROVIDING JOBS.
By purchasing a Honda SUV, I am adding my dollars to the flow of cash that cycles in and out of a supply chain, providing employment and livings for automobile, petroleum, and highway workers everywhere. The purchase of a car takes money from a bank and gives it to a company, which pays its workers with some and buys more cars with the rest. The car company takes the money and pays its workers to make more cars. The auto-workers take their money home and buy corn dogs for their children, who will eventually grow up with serious chemical imbalances. The corn-dog seller uses the money to buy more corn-dogs from corn-dog manufacturers, who buy corn from farmers. Farmers take the money and pay it back to the bank, which owns their farm, and so the natural cycle is returned to its source, with the only exception that somehow I seem to have fallen out of the loop.
Oh. That's right. It doesn't matter because I'm buying it secondhand from an individual.
2. I AM PLAYING A ROLE ON THE STAGE OF WORLD POLITICS.
I am becoming one of a massive statistic, part of the American market that is rapidly consuming 25% of the earth's finite natural resources and providing labor to thousands of workers around the globe. By purchasing a gas-guzzler -- the Honda CRV gets 20 to 25 miles to the gallon -- I am contributing to the black market for oil that Saddam Hussein is exploiting to raise billions for his war chest, thus providing the US government with a Bad Guy for public relations purposes. At the same time, I am offering financial support through oil purchase to the US allies in Saudi Arabia, and incidentally through them supporting the mutawwa'in in their righteous, God-given quest to stamp out Vice and promote Virtue in burning schoolgirls everywhere.
3. I AM SUPPORTING THE FREE MARKET ECONOMY.
I'm not really sure what a free market economy is, except that the phrase shows up every so often on NPR broadcast, which leads me to think that it's fairly important to the whole American Lifestyle thing. However, I do remember my classes in high school social studies, which taught me that I am contributing my support to the import of foreign vehicles into the United States, which in turn is providing the basis of a competitive automobile market that will benefit American consumers. Competition forces companies to better serve the consumer's needs and desires in terms of pricing, feature, and quality.
I mean, hey, just take a look at those American beers and how they're waging war against foreign Canadian imports. Nobody could deny that the competition is forcing big American brands like Budweiser and Coors to create their own distinct line in price, quality, and taste.
4. I NEED SOMEPLACE TO HANG THE STUFFED DODO WE BOUGHT IN MAURITIUS.
His name is Obediah. Don't ask me why. The Guy's a freak.
5. I AM POOR.
Four months of unemployment, despite the occasional unemployment check and many hard hours playing Final Fantasy on the Playstation, have somehow failed to keep my bank account in a healthy and attractive shade of black. (NR, this is one of the very few places in colloquial "American" that the color black is used to designate something good. Normally, one uses black to refer to bad things: "black as he's painted," "blackguard," "black-hearted," "black October." This, I'm fairly sure, could be construed as a slight towards our black cousins. On the other hand, when it comes to accounting, "black" is good, while "red" is bad. My. What a quandary for the NAACPA.)
As I was saying, I'm poor. $9000 is a very good deal for a practically-new-car with a high resale value and four, count them, four whole wheels.
6. I AM EXERCISING MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN TO BE A DUMB-ASS.
The theory goes like this. 1) I will be in a bigger car. 2) I will therefore be safer than people in smaller cars. 3) If I'm ever in an accident, this will keep me safer than the person in the other car.
Of course, this assumes that everybody else on the road is driving a smaller car, which is no longer the case since everybody else on the road has come to the same Conclusion 3 detailed above. There's the added fact that driving an SUV doesn't necessarily mean that the people riding the SUV will be safer than they would be if they were riding a smaller passenger car. What it means is that the people riding the passenger car will be 47 times more likely to be killed than they would if they were hit by a regular passenger car. I suppose in some classic American way, this constitutes greater safety: more of them died than us. We win, end of story.
Let nobody charge me with being un-American.
Getting insurance has so far turned out to be one of those heinous experiences that one only attempts to replicate when courting early Purgatory. I'm still waiting for return phone calls from three companies, while a fourth attempted to convince me that $1200+ for a year's worth of coverage wasn't utterly unreasonable.
At yet another agency, I finally pinned down an assistant to a rep in between their lunch breaks, tea breaks, coffee breaks, and cooler breaks, and proceeded to wring a quote by proxy. In other words, she'd ask me a question, I'd answer, she'd excuse herself, go and ask a rep, then return to the phone and give me the answer, followed by another question, which I'd then answer.
"So you don't have insurance now?" she asked in an official-sounding voice.
"Not right now, no," I said. "I used to have Safeco, but I moved two years ago and decided to terminate that."
"Oh," she said, and went off to confer with her Ubermind. A few minutes later, she was back. "So you haven't been driving?" she asked. It sounded like a rhetorical question.
I answered it anyway. "Sort of. I mean, I wasn't, but now I am from time to time as needed. Like, to get to work and stuff."
"Oh," she said, and then there was a small pause. When she spoke again, the Official in her voice had dropped, to be replaced with Vaguely Baffled. "Isn't that sort of illegal?"
"Mm," said I.
They eventually decided I should pay about $480 every six months. Which is, okay, better. Sorta.
I complained to my sister later. "I would think they'd be more impressed by the fact that I haven't had an accident in the last seven years."
"It's not that impressive if you haven't even driven in seven years," she observed.
Oh. Turns out that my neighbors upstairs weren't in fact having noisy and bouncy sex. It was an earthquake all along.
I'm relieved. Sort of.