Living Under a Car-tocracy - #58
(source)
It’s been a month since I’ve been released from the glacier. An Arctic expedition gone awry. My home is barely recognizable, but thank God when I knocked, a man opened the door who then explained he inherited this house from his mother. My great-great grandson. Charlie led me into his, well, my house and I told him everything. He is letting me stay with him till I get adjusted to the new reality. There is simply one feature of the future that I refuse to tolerate.
Have you seen them? They are everywhere.
These monsters of metal. Cities, all around the world, have prepared a havoc of pavement just for them. Dotting every few street corners, one can find a station to feed them fuel. It’s gas imported from where the Ottoman Empire used to be – halfway around the world – and brought to the American masses to satisfy the appetites of these bulky, dirty machines. But a majority of the time, they are not touched. They only sit there, quietly in driveways, waiting for their owners to push their buttons. Maybe once, twice a day, they’ll get the satisfaction of being driven for an hour or so. Then people have to park them in these multi-story structures and vast lots. It’s a lot of wasted space; a lot of wasted time.
You have to put one foot on the right pedal to accelerate, then your left foot to brake for “stop signs”, “red lights”, and “pedestrians”, then you must flip up your “blinkers” to acknowledge to other drivers that you are making a turn… it’s a tango with your feet and fingers to merely operate this $30,000 nuisance. Who thought it was a smart idea to then have a radio inside them? Or to link your telephone to it via airwaves, that is then always connected to a worldwide network called the “internet”? Maniacal engineers – what are you doing? At least put your attention to what really matters: people becoming entirely different beings once they get on the roads with them. Have you seen them? Aggression beyond comprehension, full of ruthless curse words I never knew could exist.
And “parking citations” – don’t get my blood running with this government hypocrisy. The city charges people for parking these machines in certain spots, but then gives them a ticket if they don’t fill their “meter”. Was it not the government in the first place that normalized these instruments of evil? They have the audacity to tell me I’m in the wrong if I don’t obey a system I never agreed to. Why is their bureaucracy my responsibility? It’s all very confusing.
So I don’t dare drive them, much less attempt “crosswalks”. I assume we’re needing to just trust people that they won’t go mad and run red lights or blow through stop signs. You can imagine I became terrified when Charlie told me he rides his bicycle to work. “You can avoid tickets altogether, Pop!” (“Pop”? He’s 33 and I’m 28, but fine.) I said to him that the “bicycle paths” that are designated for cycling are on the same street as the mechanical contraptions. “The only thing protecting you is the paint on the pavement!” I told him. He replied that there was a danger in everything. I suppose.
Then there’s the issue that the gas in them contributes to this phenomena called “climate change”. People are polluting the atmosphere and it’s causing the planet to cook to a golden brown. The biggest contributors are factories and these apparatuses. Which is odd, is it not? Sounds like an easy fix. I can understand factories working, but these monkey mobiles? We can’t forego them for a month and see what happens? The president can say, “Starting next Tuesday, vehicles are outlawed every June, and if you’re caught driving, it’s a citation based on your income.” It would be akin to becoming vegetarian for a short while. Americans celebrate “Sober January”, “No Masturbation November” – has the time come for “Vehicle-free June”? Would the world become cleaner only then?
They contaminate every facet of a person’s life. The government issues IDs to adults, young men as early as 16 are trusted with them, and the world’s cities are designed to accommodate them. Entire financial markets have been propped up because of them, especially insurance companies who can thank these machines for their existence. And we know that there are thousands of options because they are celebrated in moving pictures, in “television shows”, in magazines completely devoted to them. Every American needs to have one to participate in their 21st century society. And I’m afraid it won’t stop anytime soon.
It is my belief that we are living under a car-tocracy.
Randolph street, Chicago - 1900 (source)