Excerpts from last night...

"It's nice that we have the choice. For now."
"What? To walk vs. ride?"
"Yeah. I mean, we live close enough that we could walk to the concert if we needed to, but we have the choice to drive, too."
"I know, I don't get why everyone wants to ride. It's not that far."
"But in our culture, people don't walk places. It takes too long and we're not used to seeing walking as transportation. Walking is seen as exercise, as work, as a pain. If we lived in Boston or New York, they wouldn't think twice about it, it would be assumed that we'd walk downtown; but we live in the only big city in the state and these guys are coming from the suburbs. They just don't walk places!"
"Yeah, but it's not that far!"
"It doesn't even occur to them to walk, honey...it's just not wired into them yet."
"Yeah. Yet. It won't be long before a two mile walk will look good as compared to the gas and money it will take. I see some major lifestyle changes on the horizon. Public Transportation, for one."
"You know, we'd have better public transportation if the people in charge of it had to use it!"
"True. Have you ever used it?"
"Not in a long time, but I looked into it a few months ago. It still makes financial sense for me to drive to work myself, but I was only figuring gas prices vs. ticket prices; not maintenance and insurance. I don't want to get rid of the car just yet."
"But what's it going to take to get rid of it? How bad does it have to get before we start making major changes?"
"Well, I think the car is more reasonable to hang onto than the truck."
"But we need the truck."
"Exactly. We think we need all of this stuff, but do we?"