The money struggle

The more money I spend on gas in the cars available for me to drive - a 2001 Suburban (V8) and a 1994 Caprice (V8), both of which are paid for and neither of which I own - the more inclined I become to convince myself that I can afford to make payments on a car that's more fuel efficient. But that simply isn't true: I cannot afford a car payment. But I can't afford to fuel these gas guzzlers either. In about a month, assuming I can get over this chronic slackerdom, I'll start back to school at Gordon College, and while I'm a full-time student I'll only be able to be a part-time worker, making car ownership even more impossible (as if there are degrees of impossibility). Even with a car that gets 35 miles per gallon (which is 3 and 2.5% as much as the Suburban and Caprice, respectively), I'll still be paying, like everyone else, $4.00 a gallon. (This morning, I paid $4.04 and profoundly hated life.) $4.00 for 35 miles is much cheaper than $4.00 for 13 miles, but a car payment for a more fuel efficient car would exceed that difference. In a sentence: It just really fucking sucks. It amazes me when people presume I have enough money to treat the planet well, as if I drive a 14-year-old Caprice because I am cruelly unconcerned about the welfare of earth. I'm reminded of Bertolt Brecht saying that morality is for those who can afford it.

Well ... I admit this reluctantly .... I could fill my weekends with work. Having two part-time jobs might make it slightly less impossible for me to make car payments (so perhaps there are degrees). And if I had two part-time jobs, I’d probably want to die from having to live a life so devoid of the pleasure of downtime. Just die. Die. Die. Die. And die again. My car could be my coffin. Just kidding. I'd surely die before it'd be paid off.

But! At work early this morning, I had an accidentally brilliant idea. I had eaten two eggs for breakfast, and they constituted something insane like 135% of my daily cholesterol (if I were a beast or a man who consumed 2,000 calories a day, and I'm not, so it's more like 270% of my daily cholesterol) and a bunch of grams of protein (which I need). Feeling fat and repentant for my heavy breakfast, I wondered: "What can I do with my eggs?", as in, "How can I expend the energy they've given to me, and how can I make up for the nastiness?" It'll be alright. I eat the appropriate amount of fruits and vegetables (mostly raw, as they're more nutritious uncooked) and drink at least two liters of water daily. My feelings toward eaters of gross foods range from pity to disgust. About my own eating habits, I feel only pride (arrogance, really). It's simply better to have a pure and healthy diet. Value systems and terms almost always seem either completely arbitrary or calculated for a certain person's or group's benefit, so I try to avoid using them, but when it comes to food, I say again: It's simply better to have a pure and healthy diet. My insides, should they ever appear for viewing, like after a really terrible car accident, will be much less disgusting than usual insides. Instead of being a pile of mushy, reeking guts, my insides on the side of the road will look like chunks of freshly cut watermelon. Each time I play tennis, I am amazed to note that my sweat smells like grapes, even though I never eat grapes - must be all the wine. And because I'm anemic, my blood splattered on the highway won't have that nasty metallic smell, and it'll be a much pleasanter color than that typical purple-red that turns brown upon drying: It'll be the perfect color combination of a gala apple and a very ripe tangerine, and it'll stay that way forever. I often have nightmares of all sexes (male, female, hermaphroditic) ejaculating really disgusting substances, like sausage gravy and pancake batter made with spoiled milk and rotten eggs; this proves two things at least: my asexuality and my disgust for impure diets. Anyway! That I had two eggs this morning (with cheese and a side of grits) really made me feel disgusting, and while wondering how to get the nastiness out of my system (spinach, broccoli?) it occurred to me that I could get rid of my other eggs for money - you know, the eggs that have the potential to make babies. I'm probably within the proper age range.

New car, here I come!