September 9, 2009

Racing with the Clock

I have to wonder why I push myself into bizarre and stressful situations sometimes, to save money. Today I rented a City Car Share truck for three hours. To get the truck I had to ride damaged Ike the Bike to MacArthur BART and drop him off for repairs at Alameda Bicycle at Fruitvale BART.

From there I picked up the truck and the race was on. First zoom to Ikea to pick up some more essential stuff - I've practically memorized the catalog as pre-bedtime reading. You've never seen someone zoom so quickly through Ikea.

Luckily my new place us a straight shot from Ikea. I zoomed home and proceeded to run up and down the steps 12 times unloading new stuff and loading boxes to go to charity. I literally ran.

One hour and fifteen minutes to go and I started my drive to the electronics recycling place in San Leandro. After much searching in industrial warehouses I found it, only to learn that they are going to charge me. Fine. Just take these computers and cable snakes off my hands forever.

Now I was down to 30 minutes to get to Alameda to drop off my boxes at Good Will. I get there and unload in record time. Made it back to the City Car Share parking space with ten minutes to spare.

Aren't there simpler solutions such as renting the car for longer, or, even owning one?

The good news is that Ike is fixed and that only cost me $3. Cheap and cheerful.