MetroRiderLA

Looks like MetroRiderLA has a double dose of Zipcar fun for you today. First Tyke’s story about dumping his Zipcar membership, and now my story about Zipping around in multiple Zipcars this weekend.

It may not be as initially shocking as “2 Girls, 1 Cup” but spending a weekend doing a lot of driving leaves me feeling the same: a little queasy, sad at the current state of the world, and asking myself “why the hell would anyone do that?”.

Before this holiday weekend, I had only taken out a Zipcar once since Flexcar became Zipcar and made a big poopy mess out of the whole L.A. car sharing scene. Due to the top secret political nature of that Zipcar outing, I never wrote about it. Luckily for all of you, this weekend offered me not just one, but two opportunities to take out a Zipcar and move about this city the way you’re supposed to: behind the wheel of your very own personal automobile. Vrooooom!

It all began innocently enough, my lady friend was flying into LAX and I was planning on hopping on a Flyaway and meeting her there as I would usually do. Unfortunately, her flight was coming in quite “late”, 11:30pm, and I feared that if I took the Flyaway, upon returning to Union Station, our trusty subway system would no longer be in service. Knowing that she would be accompanied by some heavy ass baggage and a healthy dose of travel exhaustion, I knew a 2.5 mile walk home from Union Station was nothing either of us were interested in. Nor were we interested in transferring to some stinkin’ dirty bus. I thought about the possibility of taking a taxi from Union Station, but the prospect of spending $15 to go 2.5 miles, plus the cost of the Flyaway, just didn’t sit well with me. It was too much money for too much inconvenience. So it was time to turn to the ultimate tool in modern luxurious ultra convenience: the personal automobile. Vrooooom!!

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For some time I’ve been under the suspicion that bus drivers had a certain beef with bike riders boarding a bus, if not at least an annoyance for. There has never really been much indisputable evidence; I’ve never been slapped or spat upon or just plain passed (actually I have but I had no bike at the time). So without such hard evidence to prove my theory I figured it was just in my head. I make up a lot of things in my life. If I were to explain some of the neurosis in my head some might label me theoretically insane if not clinically. But I get by with boarding the bus as fast as I can and try to ignore the theoretical rays of hatred emitting from the bus driver’s eyes. Theoretical until last night that is.
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