I am old enough to remember when a household managed with one car. Not heroically. Not sacrificially. Just… normally.
Schedules were coordinated. Errands were grouped. People waited a little. Life went on.
Somewhere along the way, that quiet competence vanished. Today, two people often require three cars. Sometimes four. Cars appear and disappear in driveways like subatomic particles—here, gone, simultaneously elsewhere. It begins to feel less like transportation and more like a physics problem.
Recently, my granddaughter from France visited. She needed a car to move around, do some tourism, see Miami and the Everglades, live a little. So she used my son’s car. That left one car for the household. What happened? Nothing.
My daughter-in-law did an early school drop-off. Later, she dropped her husband at work, kept the car, ran errands, picked up her son, picked up her husband, and everyone went home together. My granddaughter explored. Work happened. School happened. Life adapted. There was one less car. And nothing bad happened.
I have neighbors, one apartment, a couple; both retired. Number of cars: 3. Other apartment, 2 brothers. Both retired. Cars: 2. Which raises an uncomfortable question: How many cars do we really need—and how many are simply insurance policies against coordination, patience, and shared time?
Once, a household shared a car. Now even the dog would feel deprived without one.