Stupid Money (driving school teslas)
Her dazzling green metallic Porsche Tycan was stopped in the merge lane. Stopped. I could not see it was a her yet from behind. I resisted the urge to honk as I imagined just how fast and expensive her look-at-me car was. Stopped. And now we were all fkd. Everyone knows if you stop in the merge lane you’ve killed any momentum you had to merge with grace. How do these people in this town, lots of them, buy these really fast and really expensive sports cars and drive them like geriatrics or a kid with a learner’s permit? Why why why, couldn’t it be me? Well, maybe not sparkling green. It was the exact color of a HotWheels(tm) Mustang I had, a MachOne, I believe. Stopped.
This is a city filled with mini-Musks and baby-Bezos types with money to burn and the drive to burn it. Student Driver Schools in Teslas! And we know the Amazons and Googles aren’t paying big bucks to college grads. And yet, the skyline is filled with high-rise condos only affordable through trust funds and parental subsidies. Austin, Texas is a party-all-the-time city, though the racial divide causes some major tension in the 6th Street area. On weekends here they shut down the main street for revelers, and there is usually one assault or murder each weekend. We’re part of the big tech boom, that’s busting at the moment.
Turns out, back in the 70s, the hippies here decided to reject the federal highway department development dollars, thinking this was a way to inhibit high growth. Our roads in Austin have been crippled ever since. The plans to expand or “fix” the highway that runs through the center of downtown has been envisioned and voted on for 15 years. So far. So, Ms. Green Electric Porsche sees no path forward for herself or all of us behind her. Except she’s in one of the fastest cars ever produced. Stopped in the merge lane in a city that’s screwed itself for years, and yet the cars keep arriving. More and more cars. And couples who drive matching purple Mazeratti SUVs.
One of my mentors said to me a year ago, “I got my wife a new car and you’re not going to like it.”
I’m not sure why I even cared, but when he told me he’d bought her a Mazeratti, I’m sure a big question mark bubble appeared above my head.
Greenie finally enters the traffic in front of me. A few minutes later in the flow of traffic I pass her in my Maz-da. She’s a petite real estate agent who can barely see over the dash. Same question in my head, “Why?”
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