I’m in a relationship that often leads me to contradict a lot of my values and aspirations. I spend a lot of money, and I often wonder why I waste so much time and effort. But I can’t quit him, man.

I speak, naturally, of my 2005 Brazilian Volkswagen: Antônio Carlos GTI.

Tôm when I first brought him home

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I’d never had a new car before, and I was working a job where I could afford the payments. So I pretty much bought him right off the lot, at first sight. And he’s been a hell of a car: solid, runs like a champ, fast as hell, easy on gas. I drove him across the continent, and it was great.

But now, I live in a city with decent public trans that’s compact enough that I can walk or bike everywhere… which is a big reason why I moved here. But I find myself clinging to Tôm, in a way that I’m not altogether convinced is healthy.

Part of it is practical, yes: I took out a six-year loan that’ll be paid off in 2012, and the way the amortization is structured means I’ve been mostly paying interest until recently. I’m gaining more and more ground each month, but I wouldn’t get much, if anything, if I sold him now. And I just paid a huge amount in repairs after a hit and run accident, so it’s really hard to justify just cutting him loose. But that’s all pretty much sunk costs… I’m not really making an economic decision here.

Most of the reason why I continue to shell out money for Tôm – loan payments and insurance alone are greater than my rent – is emotional. I finally have a car that’s not rattling itself to pieces as I drive. It’s shiny and fast and I love driving like a maniac on narrow city streets and crowded Traffichusetts highways. And even a trip across town is enough to lift my mood… unless, of course, there’s a Sox game in town. Then I become a Masshole. But even that’s cathartic.

The problem is, I genuinely believe that car culture is destroying the environment, disfiguring the human scale of community and transforming us into atomized scraps of humanity who view the world through a windshield as if it were television. In California, where Happy Motoring has reached its apotheosis, many – maybe most – people don’t know their neighbors. They never walk their own streets… they go from house to car to office to mall to house. And it’s no wonder we have no coherent political culture… it’s all mediated by television and the Internet.

Older cities like Boston at least allow the mingling of different cultures as you walk from neighborhood to neghborhood. It’s so tightly packed that driving is actually slower than biking, often requiring twice or three times as long to drive where you could ride.

Anyway, I’m locked into my sunk cost fallacy. I’ll continue to throw money at Tôm… but I am thinking more and more of selling him when I finish paying off the loan, and buying a nice bike and a Zipcar membership.

Tôm’s probably gonna be pissed, though.