I AM FACING A CRISIS in my marriage. When I came to work at The Weekly Standard, a little more than a year ago, one of the perquisites of the job was a parking space in the building garage. To anyone who commutes to work in a city of a certain size, I need not explain what this privilege means. For me, it was a genuine crossroads in life.
You see, from the day in September 1957 when my father deposited the seven-year-old me on an L-4 bus to Chevy Chase Circle (in Washington) for piano lessons, I have been a dutiful consumer of mass transit. In my self-pitying memory, I seem to have spent about a third of my childhood standing at bus stops in and around the nation’s capital, waiting for what seemed like hours, oppressed by rain, snow, wilting heat, and importunate bums.
I am wearily familiar with the public transportation systems of such disparate metropolises as Lexington, Kentucky (LexTran) and Providence, Rhode Island (RIPTA). Even when I lived in Los Angeles–the land of freeways and convertibles–I rode back and forth to the L.A. Times building on a bus that went along Wilshire Boulevard. Since it opened in 1976, I have been a faithful rider on Washington’s famous Metro, where the Orange Line ends just a seven-minute drive from the Terzian compound in bucolic Fairfax County, Virginia.
So when the opportunity arose to exchange a half-century’s experience of trains and buses–and all the convenience, funny stories, and colorful characters–for a lone commute in my car, I hesitated for about three seconds.
The Weekly Standard, like many publications, has mildly eccentric working hours, and so I arrive in late morning to avoid the HOV lanes and deadly gridlock, and drive home at night, long after rush hour. It’s a 20-mile journey, largely on an interstate highway, and a comparative breeze.
Rather to my surprise, I have found that I enjoy my half-hours of automotive solitude. I take note of my fellow commuters–the out-of-state license plates, the frenzied speeders, the “senseless-acts-of-beauty” bumper stickers–and am free to listen to the same Thelonious Monk tunes over and over. I drive a tiny car, and so weaving in and out of downtown traffic is not too scarifying.
Now, however, my reverie is in danger of disruption. Last week my wife began an exciting new job which, for the first time in years, requires her to commute to an office in Washington–just a few blocks, as it happens, from my office. Needless to say, she was delighted at the prospect of our carpooling in the morning and, if possible, driving home together. I was somewhat less delighted.
In her defense, I can appreciate her point of view. My wife has many virtues–hazel eyes, lustrous red hair, a lethal sense of humor–but no sense of direction whatsoever. She is the sort of person who consults a map to traverse the driveway. Placed arbitrarily in the middle of Washington, D.C., she would not know whether to turn north, south, east, or upside-down to get to her destination. I have a much firmer grasp of the geography of her hometown (Nashville) than she does.
Clearly, driving herself to the office is not an option. During rush hour, the freeway that connects our home to the District is restricted to vehicles with at least two passengers, and the alternative routes are cruel and unusual punishment. Anyway, even if she crossed one of the many bridges that connect Virginia to Washington, I am not sure she wouldn’t end up, eventually, somewhere in Delaware.
The other morning, with just a hint of sincerity in my tone, I encouraged her to give Metro a try. Yes, I conceded, you have to arrive rather early at the station to get a parking space; and yes, there are many, many stops between our town and McPherson Square in the District. But you can relax, read the newspaper, stare into space, make new friends, and listen to the sounds of your fellow commuters coughing.
When I spoke to her by telephone, later that day, she reported, with just a hint of iciness in her tone, that it had taken her one-and-a-half hours to get from our house to her office–approximately three times the duration of the ride in my car. The unspoken message was unmistakably clear.
What to do? I am reluctant to sacrifice 26-plus years of marriage for the sake of my solo commute. Our two children have yet to finish their education, and when she isn’t spoiling my drive, my wife can be quite amiable and amusing. She has pledged not to mention household finances during our commute, and has told me I am welcome to play “Epistrophy” as many times as I want.
But at what volume?
-Philip Terzian
