Recently, Annie decided that she

Recently, Annie decided that she wanted to sign up for this car-sharing program she’d heard of. They’re called FlexCar, and the basic idea is that you pay a monthly fee, and then you gain access to a pool of cars that you share with other members. I wasn’t that impressed with the idea, but Annie was convinced it would be useful, since we can’t afford a car right now, so she checked it out and ended up signing up.

Well, I have to admit, the program is pretty cool. You don’t pay for gas (your monthly fee, which is something like $10 covers that). You have a monthly fee, and then you pay $2 per hour, and 40 cents per mile. So as long as you’re staying inside the city and only checking it out for a few hours, it’s usually pretty cheap. And the cars are easily available. They’re scattered around the city in little parking lots that they lease a space in, and there’s a little lockbox for the key. There’s one car about 9 blocks from us, and another about 15 blocks away, and so far, we’ve never had any trouble getting a car when we needed it, even if we were only reserving it a couple hours in advance.

It’s very nice having a car available when you need it, without having to worry about maintenance or insurance and stuff. We keep finding uses for it. Tonight we’re taking a car for a few hours to go out with Miles while he’s in town, and we’re picking up our friends. This weekend, we’re going to check one out to get some groceries and check out housing in the Hawthorne district. Last night we checked out a car to get dinner and see a movie (Down From The Mountain, a documentary about the music in O Brother, Where Art Thou?… it was awesome).