I survived day number two of my life with no car. My car is in the shop (don't ask) and it has been there for a week and a half. I expect it to be there for another week because the repair shop is in "Amish country" which one of the locals explained means that everything and everyone move really slow.
Middleofnowhere is a small town (about 25,000) and since this is the mid-west that means no public transportation. Consequently, I get to walk everywhere - which is something that I usually enjoy in large cities where there are a lot of other walkers, and lots of people and places to look at - the distances seem short. In Middleofnowhere, I walk along main thoroughfares and get splattered by wet-muddy car spray. I also risk my life because NO ONE walks in Middleofnowhere; pedestrians and bicyclists are merely easy targets in the middle of the road. I walk a minimum of six miles a day currying my little-dear to school and back. (The ache in my legs is not enough to make me cave in and rent a car - although the snow predicted for Friday might tip the scales.)
All this walking has give me lots of time to consider how despicable Americans are. They drive noisy, over-sized vehicles that they cannot or chose not to control; they move around at the center of their own universe, to hell with the world around them. A ravine we pass on the way to school attracted my young companion's attention (as a place to look for walkingstick bugs). And she asked today why there was a tire at the bottom. I refrained from saying this is typical of Americans' indifferent consume-and-purge habits. I didn't need to; she'll figure this out because it is present all around us in Middleofnowhere.
I think I'm suffering from an overload of 'free radicals.'
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4 comments:
Chalk blogs like this up to why I enjoy living in Austria so much. Nearly everyone drives a small car, the public transport is probably one of the best in the world, and people are generally polite to pedestrians because pedestrians are everywhere. Stupid Americans... Kyoto? what's Kyoto? drr....
V, you ARE a free radical! Yow!!!
Well, at least your little companion still sees things from another perspective. I see the search for bugs continues!
Man-oh-man, the winter time in Middleofnowheresville, Middle America must be a lean time for your little companion: few bugs and few flowers. Yikes! What's a girl to do?
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