The advertisers be like – you need a car sir – how about a used Nissan Sedan with a CVT transmission? You can’t go wrong there, right? I mean there is a good chance it will make it off the lot before the tranny blows. I do get so triggered by the Internet advertisements which think they know what I want based on what I might have glanced at but are so far from the truth. I simply do not want some 20-year old Honda to drive to the mall every day, while I deliver pizzas out the back. I am so far from my High School days.
Maybe I was so ticked off about reading another book praising the frugal virtues of buying a used car, not that it appears to save much money unless you buy that 20-year old Honda. Really the prophets of the Used Car market are so sure of the wonders of their products, but have you looked at Used Car prices these days? Maybe you save $5,000 or $10,000 if even that by buying used compared to new. Not imaginary money, but with the cost of cars these days, you’re likely buying someone else’s lemon and taking a massive gamble to save a few bucks on what is going to be major purchase regardless. To be clear, I would prefer used, but not somebody else’s $50,000 junker. Used might be great, but this is the rig I’ll likely be using for traveling and through my early retirement, so I want to get the right truck, not the cheapest 20-year old Honda Civic on the lot.
Honestly, I like not owning a car right now. Fuck the auto industry. While I mourn the loss of Big Red, simply not owning a car doesn’t feel like that much of a loss to me. I keep hearing from people, oh I’m so sorry to you had to give up owning a car. How are you going to get around town? You are a very sad, sad person without a car. A looser! A failure, taking the bus with the colored and poor! But I’m willing to take my time, to build the rig I want, and spend the money on the truck I want. But advertisers really get my goat, especially after reading the book I just did praising used cars, preferably really cheap used cars. I get it’s just an algorithm, they can’t understand human complexity or my thought processes but go by whatever I hovered my mouse over or watched a Youtube video on. People say my heart is set on buying a new long-bed regular cab SuperDuty but the high cost, fuel economy, still give me pause. Almost impossible to find that used. I don’t know, maybe I will ultimately buy the Toyota Taco truck with the off-road package. But used is so great! I ask, then why are people selling their cars now if they aren’t junk? Maybe dealer loaner cars are fine, but I also don’t really want the vehicle everybody else has rejected as their garbage, just so save a few thousand bucks.
I did my grocery shopping with my bike mid-day. Bike shopping forces me to buy less, and requires no gas. Grocery shopping was fine, I didn’t need a lot of stuff because I had stocked up so much but I got things like eggs and additional frozen fruits and vegetables. Hannaford on the weekends with the bike is how I plan to do most of my shopping for now. Trying buy healthy, long lasting things with as little packaging as possible as I don’t have trash service and it’s more difficult to get to the store, especially mid-week.
Afterwards, rode out to Five Rivers to just see Meads’ cows. They have a big bonfire going on the farm burning brush and wooded debris. Not as cold at Five Rivers as on Friday, but it was kind of gray and dull, and I wanted to get home fairly early so I could go to the library. It’s good to get out and not spend a lot of money. I just wanted to ride more after shopping, see the country, before I’m busy with work. Doesn’t look good for riding until Thursday, and even then I’m not sure if the bike path will be clear, and it will be a Corning Hill ride in.
Then I went down to the library to kill time on the wi-fi with my laptop. It’s rare I have my computer home on the weekend, but I wasn’t sure if I would need it for work. The library is obnoxious with all the noise, so many people coughing, eating noisy bags of chips, drinking water bottles like a cow might out of their drinking trough. Working on my laptop at the library felt like one big coughing, slurping, crumbling paper session. People are so rude and noisy at the library. Maybe there is a reason I don’t normally have my computer at home and rarely go to the library anymore..