HOW A CAR CAN BE A GOOD DECOMPRESSOR.
Last Thursday, I had to go and see my gastroenterologist. She’s an hour and a half’s drive away and the same distance home. Some people might say to me, “Why not take the train?” The reason is quite nuanced. When I travel, I prefer my own company. I can be a conversationalist, but I am typically a loner. And the thought of being in a carriage with other people, one of whom may be talking loudly to another person or on a mobile phone, or eating noisily, is off-putting, and I used to get car sick, when I was little, so I can’t read or play games on my phone while I’m travelling.
I need to be by myself when I travel, and a car provides me with that opportunity.
I remember my mother criticising some neighbours of ours, and we had both extremes. On the one hand, we went out west with the inspiration for Redmond Mountford (Ghosts From The Past and The Hare and the Tortoise) and his wife, and Redmond’s typical morning preparation for a road trip was, a cigarette and a cup of coffee, throwing on some clothes (depending upon whether it was the first or second leg of a trip, it could be either clean clothes or the ones he’d worn the day before), splashing water on his face, wetting his hair and running a comb through it, kicking his tyres and announcing that he was ready. He’d have his shave and shower the night before. His wife would have a cup of coffee and a two minute shower, followed by applying make-up, lipstick and getting dressed. On the other hand, some neighbours would head off and they’d stop everywhere and have a cup of coffee. My mother said that was wrong. My stance is, to quote Gordon from Thomas The Tank Engine, “It isn’t wrong, but we just don’t do it.” “No, it isn’t wrong, but it’s not the way YOU do it.”
Whenever I go to see my gastroenterologist, I have my shave the night before, and then I have a shower and put on clean clothes, have some breakfast, brush my teeth, do the chores I need to, and leave. On the drive home, I stop at a service centre, buy some petrol, then pull away from the pumps, and park the car in the carpark, go inside and have a cup of tea. According to my mother, that’s a wussy thing to do. To which I say, even in the days when people travelled by horse and carriage, they would stop so the horses could be fed and watered and they’d go into a hotel or cafeteria and have a cup of tea and a meal or a snack, before proceeding. And, you do tend to get a bit tired and hungry, so stopping for a cup of tea is just something people do.
On a third example, I knew another man who, whenever he went somewhere, would stop at the driver reviver stand and have a cup of coffee, not because he was tired, but because he was so tight with his money that he’d stop at the driver reviver stand because the coffee was free. Now, THAT you might have something to say about.
As I like my own company, one of the other things I like is to have the windows tinted in the car to keep the glare out and keep the car cooler. I also say that a necessity, besides air conditioning, is a stereo. I set it that I have a set CD for the trip up, a set CD for driving around, and a set CD for the trip back. And there’s nothing wrong with that, either.
A car can be a decompressor after an outing as it allows the occupant, (and the size of the car is irrelevant) to have their own space for the journey home. Yes, environmental concerns are justified, but modern cars with CFC free air-conditioning, unleaded petrol and increased fuel efficiency make for reduced emissions. And we need to face the reality that public transport needs to be more introvert and autistic friendly. One option is to conduct surveys to ascertain the demand on set routes and say, “Would you consider using public transport at set times and on these conditions? For example, a peak hour bus that runs on full capacity and a peak hour bus the same size that runs on half capacity with internal lights dimmed, one person per dual seat instead of two, and a sign on the bus says, “Quiet, reduced capacity bus.””