I visited my sister in car-obsessed Los Angeles over the weekend.  Cars are a daily fact of life in L.A.   Los Angelenos practically live in their cars because it takes so long, both in distance and traffic jams, just to get somewhere.  It took us 40 minutes to get to the nearest Target from my sister’s house!

My sister is a dentist and over the weekend, we went to meet her dental assistant at her office.  We pulled up to the parking garage so that my sister could let the dental assistant, “Monique,” into the garage.  Monique was driving a Ford Expedition.  I marveled at how large her car was.  My sister remarked that usually Monique takes the bus to work because she can’t afford to fill up her tank, but that because it was a Saturday, she chose to drive to work.  My jaw dropped - what is the point of having a car if you can’t afford to fill it with gas?  I take public transportation to work, but that’s because I don’t want to deal with parking or the horrendous traffic jams.  If it came down to “I can’t afford a tank of gas,”  I can’t drive the car; therefore I wouldn’t have the car.  My sister told me that Monique actually wanted an even bigger car, i.e., the Ford Excursion, but her mother said she shouldn’t.  What’s the lesson?  You should always listen to your mother.