Do gas prices have you down? Does the idea of taking public transportation and adding two hours to your work commute due to the frequents stops have you even more down?
Here are a few ideas to help get you through this crisis and hopefully assist in keeping your sanity or pushing you into the mouth of insanity where nothing will bother you any more.
1. Push your car to work. Sure it might take a little longer, but you’ll have shelter should it start raining, and if you own an SUV, good- I hope you pull a muscle.
2. Take your family and move into your cube. Once you explain the benefits of living at work to your company and once they see your family, you’ll be telecommuting in no time (providing you still have a job)
3. In the middle of the night on a weekend, hook your car up to your neighbors. When they go to run errands, pile your family into your car and enjoy the free ride. Make sure you talk to them the day before to find out what they’re plans are so you can avoid spending the day at their Aunt Gretta’s fifth wedding in the middle of nowhere.
4. Only shop at stores on your work route. If it happens to be only a Circle K- learn how to make tootsie roll/kitkat casseroles.
5. Buy a rickshaw and convince your kids or the neighbor kids that rickshaw pulling is FUN! The shorter it takes for them to get you to work or the store, the more candy they’ll have when the day is over. Win win. If there are no kids around you, kidnap Ed Begley Jr. and force him to pull the rickshaw.
6. Sign up to an online dating service even if you’re already in a relationship. Have the person pick you up at your place or across the street for early morning “dates” that just happen to be at the building you work at. “Excuse” yourself to use the rest room and run over to them when you can in order to keep the conversation/date going. The date will be conveniently over with at the time you need to go home. If they thought it was a great date, then wonderful- you can have this reoccur four more times that week. If it doesn’t go over well, no worries, make sure you have a constant supply of “dates” to get you through until a pay day where you could afford to fill up your car again.
7. Attach shopping lists to your cats and send them to the store. Make sure you put your phone number on the list so the cashier can call you and obtain payment over the phone. Yes, it may take a few days for you to get the groceries because cats like doing things at their leisure, but hey- you just saved a trip. If you wind up with no groceries when your cat gets home, either train your cats better or find cats that can run errands for you.
8. Google Earth your area and find the route to work with the most hills and “coast” your car as often as you can.
9. Get your co-worker (who has a car and is married) incredibly drunk one night and then place them on their doorstep with wrinkled looking clothes and the stench of cologne or lipstick stains on their collar (which ever would cause marital problems). Offer them your sofa while they work on their relationship issues that seem to pop up the next day and then in return for letting them sleep on your sofa, they drive you to and from work… and the grocery store, electronics store, the movies… etc. Once the gas crisis is over or you’ve saved enough to purchase an electric car- then you can save the marriage.
10. Sell your ex’s soul on ebay for a pre-paid gas card.
The funny thing is that I found the rickshaw pic on a kids party rental site.
