I’m a 19-year-old college sophomore. I like dark rum, good music and existential conversations with my friends about the aesthetic nature of the Scooby squad that carry on until 3 a.m. I am the future of the nation, I am the master of my own destiny and I am dirt, dirt poor. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be that much of a problem-but recently I gained possession of an automobile that handles more like a Bradley than a BMW and gets about as many miles to the gallon as something that was designed to lay siege to the walls of Stalingrad. And all of my friends have this one little thing that they need to have moved.

Having a car in college seems like a great gift during your freshman year. It brings social possibility, an adventurous spirit and, most importantly, the ability to get off campus for an hour or two after you’ve spent seven hours in a dungeon memorizing the bonding properties of nitrogen. And for these reasons, automobiles are a privilege that I wholeheartedly appreciate. However, it should be known that for the week following move-in, your precious baby (or old, beat-up Buick) will be filled with the oddest assortment of cardboard and steel that you will ever see. I’m pretty sure that UTrucking has some sort of graft agreement with Parking and Transportation Services because after carrying your third fridge half a mile from brown-permit parking to Wheeler, you will curse the dolly-filled U-Haul that pulled up right outside its door and whatever corruption allowed it to exist.

The biggest problem with a car in college, though, echoes back to the financial. Last week, immediately before the effects of Hurricane Katrina had shockwaved into Missouri, I filled up with eleven gallons at $2.69 a gallon. That was half of a tank. Gas has gone up since then, and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. The price of oil (even in a low-cost-of-living environment like the Midwest) has gone up to so high a level that I don’t want to drive myself to Target to buy detergent. Suddenly my grand ideas of road tripping to see my friends at different schools have gone flying out of my gas tank, and even a 45-minute drive home is turning into a $25 trip.

Granted, I shouldn’t be complaining. The Red Line is still free. But the concept of a car in general now seems shackled by the weight of the fuel within it. For the first time, I wish I drove some little 55-mpg hybrid. And trust me, for someone who learned how to drive in a 1993 Ford Explorer, that’s big statement. And who knows, tuition might go up again next year just so that the half-mile drive to Schnucks won’t require federal funding.

The sad thing is that this doesn’t look like it’s just going to go away. Gas has been rising since I was fifteen and there were only two digits on the sign at the Shell station (three for premium). Congress passed an energy bill last month that didn’t address rising prices, Katrina has shut down pretty much every refinery on the Gulf Coast and my family still drives four SUVs. My dad always used to tell me about how he could only fill up his Pinto on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the ’70s, and I dare say that a situation such as that could repeat itself. Only, you know, with fewer Pintos.

Having a car in college is a major step in responsibility-both personally and financially. And it’s something that every student must weigh as to its worth. Do you want to pay that much for gas? Do you really need more than one car per suite? Do you really need to go on a beer run every day? Personally, the freedom of my big black Bradley is a ticket to escape from the stresses of the daily grind. My roommates will just have to deal with that when they pay me to drive them to sushi.

Popularity: unranked [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Forum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.