Cranky conservationism.
This morning, I was suffering in silence on the way in to work, biting my tongue to keep from being a backseat driver and annoying passenger. I mentioned it on twitter.
Among my complaints:
The CD that was playing was a bizarre fusion of funk, blues, and the occasional far-eastern riff. I didn’t dig it at all, but I wasn’t about to opine on it when I was half asleep anyway.
My husband has a tendency to mosey down the road. I’m a bit more type-A, although not a speeder. Still, when every single other driver on the road passes us, I get antsy.
This is even more true when we’re cruising at this speed in the left lane with traffic munching up behind us. I’m generally at least polite enough to get out of the way and, you know, keep right, like you’re supposed to.
So when I check back in on Twitter, there were a few people who pointed me to resources on why driving more slowly is a good thing when it comes to gas economy. Here’s the thing.
I already know that.
Do you want to know what I’m doing to conserve gas on the whole?
I’m incredibly efficient in heavy traffic, maintaining a ludicrous following distance so that I can maintain a steady speed in stop-and-go traffic. You’ve probably seen tractor-trailers doing this, but what’s really awesome is when you get several cars in a row doing it.
I telecommute two days a week.
I bought a car at the top of the price I could afford. It’s not a hybrid, but after 18 months of documenting my mileage I can tell you that my Toyota Matrix is optimized to cruise at about 68 mph, where it gets about 37 miles per gallon. I maintain it regularly, too.
The whole reason I was stuck with bad music this morning was because we were carpooling.
Oh, and D. cycles into work all summer, barely putting any miles on his car at all, by staying at his dad’s old house. In fact, he stays at that house during the work week year round, so that he doesn’t run up his miles commuting from the house we actually own. I could save gas by staying there as well, but there are limits to what I will put up with in the interest of fuel economy, and there are compelling reasons to not move into Dad’s old house.
But anyway. That’s a sampling. What it comes down to is that I appreciate the need to save gas, but we’re among the more conscientious of consumers in that regard anyway. The least I can do is put up with longer trips with bad music, but it won’t stop me from tweeting that I’m annoyed. More than anything, there’s humor to be had in these situations. It’s just that somehow, the humor seems to get lost in a need to say “Well, Helen, of course you’re wrong….”
Well of course!!!!! We all are!!!!!