Enough

Last Wednesday, Tim left us for a trip to the US to spend time with a friend.

No worries. Except Jonathan didn't have school on Thursday, due to parent teacher conferences.

So I took him to my office on Thursday, logged him into the internet, and he watched youtube videos all morning, followed by decorating my whiteboards with mathematics in French while I attended meetings. (My French colleague came in afterwards and noted a few errors, but overall he was impressed.)

This city is well connected with public transportation, but my university is in a different suburb than Jonathan's school. It's not a problem to get from the city centre to the university, or to Jonathan's school, but they're on two prongs of a triangle. It takes much longer than it should to travel that third prong, between the university and the school, and the public transit apps I usually like always want me to take the one bus that comes just once an hour, always late. I hate that bus. I have to come up with creative ways to get the transit app to tell me how to get to the station nearby instead. I'll walk up the hill!

Anyway, after a morning in my office, Jonathan and I headed to his parent teacher conferences. And they were fine, and he's doing great. But it took forever to get there. Then home.

Friday was pouring rain, and Jonathan got stuck in traffic on the tram again. He tried to call me, but I was on the bus, on my own prong of travel, and I couldn't hear my phone. We got everything sorted out, finally, and we survived, but it was frustrating.

Monday Jonathan's year in school all left for a three day camp on the beach. I helped him get to school carrying his gear, and that was fine. And then I was home alone for three nights. I got a lot of work done. No complaints.

Until Wednesday when I had to pick Jonathan up from school at 3. I couldn't leave until after my office hours ended at 2. Well ok, I could leave a little before 2. I left, ran to the bus stop on time to catch the shuttle to the train. And the shuttle was late. And I missed the train. And so I missed the bus that comes once every 40 minutes. So I was going to be late. So I traveled instead all the way to the city centre, switched trains, and traveled all the way back along the Jonathan school prong. By 3:20 I was there, to find Jonathan sitting around waiting for me, bored. And because I was late we missed the train home, too.

So in all, picking Jonathan up took about an hour and a half, and then getting home took another 40 minutes. Google says it's a 16 minute drive between my work and his school, without traffic. There wouldn't have been much traffic before 3pm on a Wednesday.

It's all fine and good to go without a car when there is a parent in the city centre who can deal with trips to the school via train. But dealing with that third prong of the triangle when I'm home alone is not reasonable.

I'm getting a car.