They're shooting the pier

[austin_dern]

You might well expect the next day, Monday, would be my chance to drive my new car into work and show off to everyone not only that I had selected something but that I had picked a pretty nice-looking car. Or you might know me instead, and trust that I had some much more ridiculous scheme in mind. As always with the dumb things I get myself into I had a superficially credible chain of reasoning, and a minor problem to solve. In this case my problem was: my rental car. I had a Malibu U (or something) on loan from the Enterprise rent-a-car barely a mile from home, and it needed to be returned by Tuesday at 8 am. The rental agency is open from 7:30 am through 6 pm, so that it's not actually possible for me to get there before work and not be late, and driving back I have to not hit any traffic jams. My father --- who still was unsure just where it was even after I explained it in terms of the Wawa and the 7-Eleven which flank it --- suggested I should drive home after work, take the Malibu back, and ride home with him.

My idea: I'd drive the Malibu in to work, then drive home from work right to the rental agency, and then walk home, unless it should be raining. This was no idle threat, as it's rained 45 of the past 30 days. But the suggestion that I could simply walk home took my parents by surprise even though it is, really and truly, just barely over one mile and along a path that may not have sidewalks everywhere along it but that isn't exactly a dangerous path even of suburban central New Jersey. Anyway, I'd save the time of the last bit of drive, rousing a parent, and backtracking again, so that seemed most logical to me. And so it was that my first weekday, my car sat in the driveway instead of being used as a vehicle.

The Enterprise Rent-A-Car guy, when I returned the car, asked if I needed to be dropped off anywhere. I'd forgotten they do that, or volunteer to do that, but I stuck to my resolve to walk home since getting a lift for under a mile felt too fundamentally lazy on my part. Happily, it didn't rain, and I did notice walking all the way back the differences between the terrain on foot and the terrain on car, mostly in the number of houses along that path and just which side of the street was plainly built in the early 60s and which side was obviously built in the 70s. And I got a couple nice pictures of the entrance to the community which my father thinks I should send to the community monthly newspaper as cover art. Perhaps I will. We'll see. But by now, finally, everything I had to do with the business of car purchasing, other than getting the new insurance card and getting my permanent license plates, was now done.

Trivia: Soybeans were introduced to the United States in 1804, as ballast in a clipper ship. Source: Twinkie, Deconstructed, Steve Ettlinger. (I have my doubts about the exactness of this, in particular the characterization of a ``clipper ship'', which I had thought dated to later in the 19th century. I know little enough about New England shipping of the early 19th century that I can't say the book grabbed at a term without verifying it, however.)

Currently Reading: A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Burton G Malkiel.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

The Malibu Maxx? I've had one of those as a rental. I think it was in AZ, visiting Tricuspa.

I've walked home about a mile, maybe mile and a half from my repair shop after leaving my car there overnight, and walked back. The exercise was worth the modest time, especially given the aid of my iPod.

Wikipedia claims clipper ships were used in the war of 1812, but the name 'Clipper ship' has first citation in 1830. So it was quite possibly a clipper ship, but not called that.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I wonder what it's like to have a mechanic that's actually in a reasonable distance of where you live. Walking distance from here would be a bit challenging (there's one place that's within two miles, that's not too bad, although the only experience anyone in the family has with them was unpleasant). These places that are fifty minutes away ... they're getting old.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I am fortunate enough up here in Willimantic to have a totally unlicensed but effective mechanic who is just one block down the road; he helped out greatly when my alternator failed trying to get home from work.

On the way to his garage (which is, literally, his house's garage), there's a Midas as well.

I'd recommend checking out http://www.cartalk.com/content/mechx/ to see what's near you.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, that would've been nice to know about two years ago, but I suppose it's done for now. I've got a maintenance plan now so any of the `participating Toyota dealerships' should do it. There's not actually one nearer me than the nearest of the Cartalk-listed spots, but they are a lot closer than where we've been going.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I used to take my car to the place seven doors down from my house, until one day they decided they didn't work on foreign cars and weren't moved by my pointing out they had always worked on my car before. After that I started taking it to a place about a mile away, going to and fro on my bicycle. But now I always spring for dealer service, and that's clear across town, about a fifteen minute drive. They do offer a courtesy shuttle, however, one of the perks that goes along with paying an arm and a leg for dealer service.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

And now I've seen the place, too! I've got to get back to my trip report and all the various things witnessed, like the sign with some of the letters gone missing.

My dealer service now is supposed to offer a loaner if the repairs are expected to take overnight. I'm hoping I don't have to test that, but we'll see.