I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.
I walked to a nearby store recently and as I was about a block away I noticed a woman getting to a car about halfway between me and the store. As I walked passed the car, it was pulling out of the driveway. And when I finally got to the store, so did the car that had just pulled out of the driveway.
That’s right. Someone got into their car to drive half a block to the store.
The individual walked into the store behind me, and as far as I could tell, just picked up a bottle of Diet Coke. I checked out first, and started my walk home. As I walked passed the driveway from which the car came, I turned around, and noticed the driver getting back into the car. And when I got to the end of the block, I turned around again, and noticed the driver had pulled into their driveway and was leaving their car with their bottle of Diet Coke.
They drove their car half a block to the store to get a bottle of Diet Coke.
I can’t say I’m particularly shocked by the whole incident, for a couple of reasons. The first is based on a statistic I read. Now, I don’t know if this statistic is factual, because it kind of blows my mind if it is, but the statistic says the average American only walks about 400 yards--a quarter of a mile--a day. That’s it. That’s, like, just over 1,000 steps for the average person, and that’s nothing. Heck, for me, that’s just walking to work one way. But supposedly, that’s as far as the average American walks on an average day.
And who knows; maybe the statistic is right. The other reason the whole situation didn’t surprise me is that Loraine and I often get comments from people who say they see us out walking here or there, and those comments are often tinged with an unspoken “WHY do we see you out walking?”, like it’s an unnatural state of affairs that we walk the four blocks to work or the store instead of driving there. So if we get those unspoken comments from people based on the fact that we walk, maybe we really ARE freaky in that respect. Maybe we really ARE freaky because we don’t drive a half a block to the store.
But I’m okay with that.
Now, I don’t know the background of the person I saw driving half a block to the store to buy a bottle of Diet Coke. Maybe the person has a physical disability or something else that makes walking hard. That could be. But it didn’t seem like they had any difficulty getting into or out of their car, and they sure seemed to be fine when picking up their Diet Coke. So if I had to guess--and this is, of course, just a guess--they didn’t need to drive half a block to the store because of a physical problem.
They drove a half a block to the store because they chose to drive half a block to the store.
I know Americans are both in love with their cars and very averse to exercise, but wasn’t this a bit much? I mean, in the time it took this person to get into their car, drive the half block, park it, go into the store, and then head back home, I was able to cover the same distance AND throw an extra half block each way for good measure. What I’m saying is that it took them more time to drive the half block to and from the store than it did for me to cover the same distance on foot. And I did it without wear and tear on a car, and the cost of gas and of air pollution. Not only that, I got some exercise out of it, as well.
There are times when I really don’t understand why some people do the things they do. And that drive to convenience store was one of those times.
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