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Our love affair with cars

As a new part-owner of General Motors, I have to say I'm pleased as punch. Whether it's date night at the drive-in, family night at the drive-thru, or a good-natured game of chicken with the edge of a cliff, you just can't beat owning a car.

As a new part-owner of General Motors, I have to say I'm pleased as punch. Whether it's date night at the drive-in, family night at the drive-thru, or a good-natured game of chicken with the edge of a cliff, you just can't beat owning a car. I call mine "Greased Lightning."

Cars are the way of the future, by golly! Whole towns and cities are being built around cars these days (the 1950s), with new highways and parkways, drive-thru banks, drive thru restaurants, drive-thru dry cleaners - heck, you can drive thru just about anything these days. That's what personal freedom is all about, the open road.

Sure, it's a long haul from Pine Creek to the city and to the malleria now that Main Street has been paved over to make way for a turnpike, but they can always add more lanes, bridges and tunnels in the future... if flying cars haven't been invented yet.

What's that? Take the bus? Please, Louise! Public transportation is for squares! I poured malted milks at Mr. Grower's Pharmacy all summer to buy myself Greased Lightning so I wouldn't have to take the bus.

Carbon dioxide? Easy now, poindexter, what's that exactly? A colourless, odourless gas? That will build up in the atmosphere and gradually warm the surface of the planet? Hey, I think somebody's been reading too many comic books!

What? Thousands of egghead scientists say that's a bad thing? So I guess I won't be buying a school sweater this year...

Climate change? I guess it is pretty hot, but all I have to do is roll the windows down and put the pedal to the metal if I want to get a breeze. Maybe rip the sleeves off my white t-shirt...

Drought? Melting glaciers? Whatever you say, big daddy. I have places to go, and I like to get there fast if you know what I mean. Where? I dunno - glee cub meetings, baseball games, movie shows, that kind of thing. Mostly I just cruise around and look for girls. And how!

Now what? A carbon tax you say? Why on earth would somebody want to do that? Last time I checked this wasn't Russia, bub, I have a right to drive anywhere I want, anytime I feel like it. Let the people who take the bus pay for the bus.

Okay, whatever, I'll pay the stupid tax - a few cents a gallon is no big deal, I'll just pick up a few extra shifts a month as a roller skating waiter... Huh? What's a "litre?" Sounds French or something...

Oh, so I'm really paying 10 cents a gallon? That's actually kind of steep. Still, I'll get by. Maybe cash in some of those bonds. I don't really want to go to college anyway.

Now you're telling me that my car is too big! It's supposed to be big, you numbskull! I live in this thing. I fit five buddies in the backseat and three in the trunk when I went to the drive-in last weekend.

You take that back! Oh, so being sustainable is a good thing? Whatever you say, pal. Car pooling? Now you're just talking nonsense.

Listen, thanks for the jaw session, future man, but I have to go, I have to rip down to the city to buy some new Hush Puppies.

Traffic? Really? Thirty minute wait to get on the bridge? Is it under construction or something? Volume... Sure, I listen to the radio when I'm driving pretty loud, but...what, you mean "volume of cars?" Like, there are so many cars on the road that it takes forever to get anywhere? Sheesh, that's going to change my plans a little bit. Still, it beats taking the bus.

Next thing you're going to tell me I can't park for free anymore.

Two bucks an hour? Go easy, Mabel! How am I going to pay for that?

Get that bus ticket out of my face, I'll find a way. Maybe I could sell a few of my baseball cards - I'll bet someone would give me two bucks for my Mickey Mantle rookie card. He doesn't even play baseball anymore.

The important thing is that I'm not taking the bus.

Listen, if you're so smart and cars are so bad then why did we buy GM, which makes some of the biggest, most powerful fuel hogs on the planet? Huh? Explain that, party pooper!

I knew that would shut you up.

The way I figure it is that people love their cars, and the government knows it because they're all swell people who love their cars, too. If they want to sell cars and make all that money back then they'll have to make it easy for people to drive. That means more roads, more lanes, free parking, all that stuff.

If they really wanted people not to drive then they would have put that ten million bucks into those buses you love so much. What? It's $10 billion? I'm not familiar with that term...

Wow, that is a heck of a lot of zeroes! Imagine that, a thousand million dollars times ten. Hey, but it all just proves my point that cars rule and buses drool. You don't see the feds putting money in Big Bicycle or Streetcars Incorporated, do you? Of course not, it's all about the cars.

Hybrid gas-electric vehicles? Electric cars? Sounds small and slow. And dangerous. You'd be totaled in a head-on with Greased Lightning. In that case, maybe it would be better if we all took the bus after all.

Nah, just messing with you! Now watch as I burn rubber to the bank to cash in those bonds...