As I do once every month or two, I drove out to our corporate office today. This involves 20 miles on 66 West through Fairfax. I go against traffic, which is nice.
For those of you going East, though, I can’t imagine it’s worth it. It was backed up from the Beltway all the way out past Fair Oaks, and I doubt that’s unusual. Keep in mind this was before 8AM, so we haven’t even quite hit peak rush hour.
How do people justify this sort of commute? I did it for about a year, but it was my first job out of college, and I didn’t really know any better.
This will be the downfall of our society. Someday we will all commute from the Moon, and it will take us a week, but we’ll justify it by saying that real estate on Earth is just too expensive. Why, out here on the Moon, you can get a fifteen square foot survival pod for only $36,000,000 (That’s $450,000 in today’s dollars, or about 13 British pounds.)!
It’s just bad for people to spend time in the car like that. It’s stressful. It’s bad for the environment. It takes you away from people and sticks you in your own climate-controlled little box where you can choose to be entertained by repetitive garbage pop songs, inane morning show drivel, or depressing public radio.
As an aside, the radio is just awful. I turned on 94.7, as recommended by a friend. I don’t want to give up on the station because of just one song, but Jack Johnson sure blows. I don’t know what the song was, but it sounded like the Chili Peppers will sound when they’re in their 80’s. Maybe I’ll try it again on the way home.
Every time I drive to work, I want to go home and set fire to the car. And then set fire to everyone else’s car. Oh, wait, that’s not really environmentally responsible. Okay, I want to recycle all the cars into affordable modular housing so we can all live in car-free cities and walk everywhere and lose weight and clean up the air (Yes, I know that cars aren’t the bulk of the air pollution, but they sure don’t help). It will be awesome.
Anyway, stop commuting. Telework, or get a new job closer to home. You really didn’t need that fourth bedroom that you keep made up nicely for the guests who don’t come visit because you live an hour from civilization. You probably didn’t even need that third bedroom where you keep all the crap your mom made you take with you when you moved out.