A few weeks ago I experienced - temporarily – what many of us will perhaps one day experience permanently: life without a car. Some of you may already be in that situation. I still had to go to work. I still had meetings to attend. I still had errands to run but I had no car. It was in the shop for some minor repairs that of course took longer to fix than I was originally told so when all was said and done, I was without a car for a little over a week.
I live alone and my kids have long since flown the coop to pursue adult lives of their own. Besides, they don’t live nearby so asking them to cart me around wasn’t really an option. So what was I to do? I was in a bit of a bind until I remembered something my daughter’s boyfriend recently told me, that he was living the “app life”. So what does that mean?
Well, if you own a smartphone and have access to the internet you have a lot of power in your pocket. There are thousands of computer applications, which are essentially small computer software programs commonly referred to as “apps” that you can place on your phone that allow you to do numerous things and provide you with easy access to a variety of innovative and useful services. Among them are apps that will link you to ridesharing services, two of the most popular being Lyft and Uber.
Over the course of the next few months, I will be sharing with you how I used “apps” to do what I needed to do and be where I needed to be without a car. In so doing, I discovered that giving up my car didn’t mean I had to give up living my life. So stay tuned. Next month I will start by sharing how I used Lyft to get out and about.
