I recently decided to sell my car, buy a scooter, and rely on my bicycle, MARTA, a 49 cc scooter, and Flexcar as my means of transportation. I don’t want to own a car anymore, at least not until tens of thousands of dollars doesn’t seem like a hell of a lot of money to spend for something that I really know nothing about. I live in midtown Atlanta and work at the courthouse and the jail. The courthouse is five train stations from my house, the jail is a quick ride on my scooter (4 or 5 miles), and I hang out solely within the perimeter. I almost never use a highway, and I almost never go more than five miles from my house. I don’t buy in bulk, and I live alone. When I do need a car, I can reserve one from Flexcar, pay by the hour or day, and not worry about insurance, registration, repairs, or gas. To me, this was one of the most liberating decisions I’ve ever made, but I’m amazed at how many people think that it’s impossible.
“You’re gonna have to get a car.” “You need a car.” “You have to have a car.” Even my French neighbor, Jean-Francois, whose other house is in Place de la Bastille, has his doubts. So far, I’ve been fine, but in fact, there’s no way it can be true that I “have to have” a car. Lots of people don’t have cars. Many of those people don’t have scooters, or car reservation services, or even bicycles. Life is damned inconvenient for them but they manage. And honestly, life was far more inconvenient for me with an ailing car than it is without any car at all.
It’s always enlightening to find out what other people think you have to have. I went to Emory law school after growing up and attending college in Birmingham, Alabama. One of the reasons I went there (scholarship notwithstanding) was that the student body didn’t look like the people I’d grown up with, and I wanted to broaden my horizons. I distinctly remember calling my big sister a couple of weeks after classes started, fretting that I didn’t fit in. “Ginny, those Yankee girls don’t look like us. There’s this one girl who wears gold velour sweat suits, like the kind Jack Tripper used to wear on Three’s Company, with gold jewelry, full makeup, and a Vuitton bag. Sometimes a Gucci or Chanel bag.” She told me about Juicy Couture (Ginny reads US Weekly), and for some reason, that reassured me and I eventually got used to it, except for the makeup and jewelry with sweats.
It’s probably obvious that what I ended up doing was adding to my knowledge of humanity by learning not just what educated but low-key Southerners are like, but also what people from Florida and New York who’ve known since birth that they were expected to be lawyers are like. I’ve always thought Emory was a stellar school; a surprising number of my classmates spent the first semester stunned and ashamed over not being at an Ivy League law school. A couple of them actually said “I don’t belong here,” or “I’m supposed to be at an Ivy League school.” Then they got their first semester grades and had a whole new set of worries. They had to get into the top twenty-five percent, minimum, because they had to get a big firm job. Apparently everyone has to have these things, which may explain why many law students steadfastly refuse to try to do math.
The things that they had to have didn’t end there. One of my good friends grew up in a very affluent family, and has more self-imposed pressure than anyone I’ve ever met. I don’t know if there’s a drug that could make her comfortable with herself, make her feel good enough. She and her husband started house hunting as soon as she got a job offer, and of course, the stress was killing her. On $120K a year, there was simply no way they could get what they had to have. “I don’t know how people do it,” she fretted. I naively assured her that there were lots of affordable houses and condos in the city. No, condos were out. And there were no houses for under half a million. My ex-boyfriend had just sold one, not three miles from Emory, for $165K, so I knew this was false. I mentioned that, and then found out that his house didn’t have what you have to have. “It has to be in a walking neighborhood, with sidewalks– you know, walking distance from shops and restaurants.” I nodded. “And it has to have at least five bedrooms and three bathrooms.” “For two of you?” “Well, he’s a total pack rat.” I started to get the idea. “And it has to be in a good school district, so our kids can go to good schools. You have to send your kids to good schools.” Right, because they have to be able to get into a good college and then law school so they can live the good life like this. (Actually, that’s nothing compared to the lawyer I met who was five months pregnant with her first child and announced during a deposition break that “My kids are going to be doctors.”)
Seriously, I have no doubt that I’ll be bitching about my kids’ educational needs just as soon as I procreate. And I love living in a neighborhood where I can walk to lots of shops and restaurants. But I don’t kid myself that I have to have these things. I’m aware that I think that I have to have a refrigerator. I seriously cannot imagine living without a refrigerator. I’m not even sure that my house would be up to code without one– can I legally live in a house without a fridge? I really don’t know. On the other hand, I also know that lots of people live entire lives without ever staring into one bummed that there’s nothing good to eat. One of the biggest benefits of learning what other people have to have is rethinking my own list.
So, no car. I don’t have to have one. But if I’m going to keep riding this scooter all winter, I really need to buy some better gloves. I saw some on ebay, leather lined with rabbit fur. I’m bidding as we speak; I have to have them.
