Guilty feet ain't got no rhythm

The phone call came. It is time to put the car out of its misery. The mechanic who broke the news - a man  (let’s call him Mr W) who has cared for our cars for many years - came round with the keys so that we could collect our few belongings from within, prior to the end. He was visibly upset. This was the third car this week that had been told to prepare for the great scrap heap in the sky. I wanted to comfort him, tell him it wasn’t his fault. He refused to take money for the many hours of work he had undertaken to try to save my beast. He spoke of new cars. And I felt guilty.

Guilt is a major part of this new regime. You might imagine that I should feel guilty for all the miles of gas-guzzling, fume-pumping, greenhouse effect-increasing driving that I had done. My tank chucked out more Carbon Dioxide (greenhouse gas) than most. And car exhaust contains other nasties like Carbon Monoxide, also a greenhouse gas. Alarmingly, transport is estimated to account for 20-25% of all greenhouse gas emissions. I’m never sure how people work out these statistics but they sound scary. Apparently, when they measured air quality in a 2004 Carfree Day in Montreal, Canada, there was a 90% reduction in the level of Nitrogen Monoxide and a 100% reduction in Carbon Monoxide within the area closed to cars that day compared with readings taken the same day at place where motor traffic was normal.  And this isn’t even considering the Sulphur Dioxide, Benzene, Formaldehyde, Polycyclic Hydrocarbon and something called suspended particles, PM-10 particles less than 10 microns in size, whatever these are. I know by their very names that they are BAD. (Check out www.nutramed.com/environment/carschemicals.htm and www.worldcarfree.net for all you need to know and more).

No, that isn’t what is making me feel guilty. It’s everything else. I felt guilty as Mr W worried about my not having a car. He was worrying for me and the family, but I did not like to tell him that I was considering the whole carless exercise, as it struck me that one customer with one less car would mean less work for him and less income. Everything is connected.

And then there is the family. Mr W is right to worry. I cannot take them to the places they want. Yes, this is liberating, but at a cost. Ted the teenager wants to visit a theme park with some friends (“You owe me two years’ birthday treats!” True, but unhelpful given the family’s current economic downturn). Public transport is available, and will take, oh, let’s see, four times as long. Lexy had stomach ache and I felt I should drive her to school, but I couldn’t. I missed the bus and the next one would make me 15 minutes late to pick up Coco. The kitten got her paw stuck in a drawer and had to go to the vet. She had to be carried and was most put out.

I am relying on feet, on buses but also on friends and this adds to my guilt. I don’t want to burden them. There again, I tried to avoid burdening one friend who had already given me and Ted a lift. I pretended that I didn’t need her to take me back afterwards. Turned out she was tormented by her own guilt at not having driven me home. Oh boy, this is complicated.

Still, at least E made everything better by saying “I don’t know that being without a car is fair on the kids”.