People Can't Carpool

I live in a place out in the boonies. Where the stars shine brightly at night, it freezes here but not 20 miles away, and satellite internet is the only option unless you use the phone line. It takes me a little over 30 minutes to get to work on a good day, and I have a 6-cylinder car that I love dearly but isn't all that fuel efficient.

 Our driveway. Like a park, only not maintained.

When I first moved out here (temporarily) I decided that I needed to find out if my work had a carpool going. It costs me about $10 a day to commute. According to my Automatic app, it's about $2.75 each way in gas, plus $4.25 toll for the bridge. And considering my car almost has 140k miles on it, carpooling seemed the way to go. I work in a hospital that employs a lot of people, but believe it or not, carpools from my area to work are pretty much non-existent.

The view is soured by the cost to achieve it.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge 

(please do click on this link for my posted video. I would have embedded it but Blogger is stupid)

I pass two park 'n rides on my way into work. Commuter #1 constantly can not believe more people aren't willing to carpool with us. That $4.25 daily bridge toll adds up fast. I agree. I haven't carpooled with her now in over a month as she needs to keep going in early for work. Well, there's reason #1.

Commuter #2 is the biggest flake I've ever seen. She can't commit. She complains about never having any money and such, and yet I need to text her only 20 minutes before we would meet at the park 'n ride to find out if she's going to make it or not. It drives me absolutely insane. If you woke up late one morning and can't make it, fine, that's cool. But if you constantly can't get it together enough to make the deadline for meeting me and I can't even know until the last minute? Not cool. Especially when she expects me to drive because it's "my turn". Excuse me. You had your chance when I asked you yesterday if you were carpooling and you flaked out. If you'd have joined me you would have had a free ride but instead I had to drive myself. You had your chance. No, it's your turn now. I wish I had the balls to say that to her.

That, and when we carpool I have to stay an extra 30 minutes for her to get off at 5pm. So it's not like I get a lot out of it. Especially when she's coming out of the building at 5:15 and then I don't even get home until 6pm or later.

There comes a point where carpooling just isn't worth the hassle anymore. I am this close to calling it quits with Commuter #2. If she can't take it seriously and commit to doing this, then I'm just wasting my time. Commuter #3 lasted about 3 weeks. She actually lives right down the street from me and we would save a ton of money if we carpooled together but she dropped off the face of the planet one day. Commuter #4 lasted a bit longer but I guess her hours were wonky so she had to drop out too. That's it. There's 5 people that we could finally get a van but no one is willing enough to commit to it.

Except for me. The only one who cares that's she's paying $10 a day to go to work, I guess.