A Walk with Catie and Jake, Fascinating Cars

Saturday mornings, Ah! The time when cartoons used to occupy my attention for hours, when it’s sunny, breezy, and Mom is cleaning the house. If I'm lucky, a trip to the park. This of course is not how my Saturday’s usually happen now. Typically I sleep in, trying to ignore my grogginess from lack of sleep and my social outing from the previous night. This Saturday morning, however, I planned a walk with my friend Jake and his girlfriend Catie. I’ll admit I was a little groggy but the fresh air and morning sun (along with a bike ride to meet them) soon got me going.

We set off for the Tea Garden, a Bubble Tea hot-spot near uptown, as I explained my walking project to Catie. We soon got to the topic of cars. Jake is somewhat of a car enthusiast. The question arose, aside from transporting people, "what is it about cars that people like so much?" Jake began by describing ‘the drive.’ The experience that all 16 year old's anticipate since childhood, as cars are practically one of the first toys marketed towards children. Not that the car companies would be conditioning this wonderment for their own propagation…

The drive, Jake explained, is like moving your body in a way that would not be possible otherwise. The feel of the seat enveloping your body as you propel yourself forward is exhilarating! Not to mention, aside from buildings, cars are the largest man-made object people own. Naturally we will personify it and become attached. This led the discussion into car design. Cars have personalities, the lines, shapes, colors, lights, and sounds all play into how a car, and by association it’s owner/driver, are perceived. Why do we need to compensate for our own personal vehicle, our body, with another? Because we can.

Jake feels that without a car he would be limited in his access to people and things. He is going to school out-of-state, as am I. So I can also relate to driving to escape. But we have planes and buses too. Again control comes up. You cannot be fully in-control of your transportation experience in a public vehicle - climate control, seat position, music. Of course this control is ultimately over privacy. Why don’t we like to be around other people? Because they are the unknown.

Yet we trust other people to be in control of their car, in the next lane traveling 70 miles per hour. So you would think that we would actually perceive cars to be less safe than walking, but we think of our neighborhood to be less safe, because inside of our car we can lock the doors. And because we rely on our cars we assume they are more reliable than walking, but they are not. Walking will improve your ability to walk. Driving does not improve your car’s ability to drive. We like to place the responsibility of transportation onto our cars; however, we are ultimately responsible for our cars. And the responsibility of a car is much more than the responsibility of walking.

So, we end our conversation with driving as an enjoyable sport. Whether or not we use cars to transport ourselves, Jake said that he would always want to be able to drive a car for the enjoyable experience. This is about the time we noticed a few new businesses, a florist and a bike reseller. Walking with Catie and Jake ultimately proved that walking too is enjoyable and can provide practical transportation. Walking can also help you discover new things that you may not have noticed inside of a car. We all enjoyed the new stores and plan to return to them again.