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Entitlement
Dec. 15th, 2010 10:40 amI have definitely gotten over my serene go with the flow attitude that I had when the car broke down this past Sunday. I drove Rob's car the family car to work yesterday, but Rob needed it today to take Fiona to an appointment. So it was mass transit for me to get to work today.
And I threw a tantrum over it. Like a spoiled brat I bitched and moaned about how I had to get up a half an hour earlier and how I had to freeze my ass off at the bus stop and how I had to freeze my ass off at the transit stop and how I then had to walk from the drop off point to my workplace. Because now my five mile commute takes forty-five minutes instead of fifteen, and it isn't easy or convenient anymore. I don't walk out my back door to my garage, pull out the car, drive to work and park indoors in my own office building anymore. Now, I walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus, which takes me to the light rail stop and from there I take the train which drops me off six blocks away.
And then I got absolutely disgusted at my own sense of entitlement. Like a typical lazy American, I have come to assume that the world somehow owes me a car so I can have an easy commute. As if my own daughters don't have to take the bus every single frickin' day. As if people all over the world all get a car and cheap gasoline for the asking, as if people in Africa don't have to walk miles for fresh water, or count themselves lucky if they have so much as a rattletrap bicycle with rags wrapped around the wheels because they can't get rubber tires.
I froze my ass off. I bought a mocha at Caribou to warm myself up and felt guilty about spending the money and then thought bitterly about the ugliness of my own sense of entitlement.
I don't know if I can justify to myself buying another car. I can't do a car payment, so we have to pay cash. But how can I let go enough of my carefully hoarded rapidly diminishing stash of cash when I don't know how long it'll take Rob to find a job? When Fiona's about to start college?
Crabby and troubled. I don't like myself very much this morning.
And I threw a tantrum over it. Like a spoiled brat I bitched and moaned about how I had to get up a half an hour earlier and how I had to freeze my ass off at the bus stop and how I had to freeze my ass off at the transit stop and how I then had to walk from the drop off point to my workplace. Because now my five mile commute takes forty-five minutes instead of fifteen, and it isn't easy or convenient anymore. I don't walk out my back door to my garage, pull out the car, drive to work and park indoors in my own office building anymore. Now, I walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus, which takes me to the light rail stop and from there I take the train which drops me off six blocks away.
And then I got absolutely disgusted at my own sense of entitlement. Like a typical lazy American, I have come to assume that the world somehow owes me a car so I can have an easy commute. As if my own daughters don't have to take the bus every single frickin' day. As if people all over the world all get a car and cheap gasoline for the asking, as if people in Africa don't have to walk miles for fresh water, or count themselves lucky if they have so much as a rattletrap bicycle with rags wrapped around the wheels because they can't get rubber tires.
I froze my ass off. I bought a mocha at Caribou to warm myself up and felt guilty about spending the money and then thought bitterly about the ugliness of my own sense of entitlement.
I don't know if I can justify to myself buying another car. I can't do a car payment, so we have to pay cash. But how can I let go enough of my carefully hoarded rapidly diminishing stash of cash when I don't know how long it'll take Rob to find a job? When Fiona's about to start college?
Crabby and troubled. I don't like myself very much this morning.