The next house I buy will have its garage on the right side of the house (as viewed from the street).
This occurred to me as I just pulled my car into my house's left-side garage, and I had to walk all the way around the car to get to the side where the house door is. And because I usually close the garage door from inside the car once I park, I have to shimmy sideways behind the car as closely as possible so I won't trip the electric eye and make the garage door stop closing. I mean, this whole process takes me about 10 seconds longer than if the garage were on the other side of the house, and thus I could get out of my car door and walk straight in the door.
Big deal, you say? Well, let's say my time is currently worth about $20 an hour. Maybe that's generous, because one online website had me enter my assets, liabilities and hours worked, and told me that my time is worth less than zero. But since $20 an hour is about what my old job paid, let's stick with that assumption.
I also park my car in my garage at least once every day, barring illness or some Saturdays that follow Friday night poker, but usually it's twice or more. Let's conservatively say that on average, I park in the garage twice a day. Doing the math, this equates to two hours spent each year walking around my car in the garage, and thus about $40 each year. And I'm not even factoring in the salt marks on my clothes which transfer from my car when I'm shimmying around its back side.
Again, big deal? Some things simply cost money, I realize, but something as simple as "on which side is the garage" shouldn't be one of them. My recent statistics training makes me want to obtain a database of all recent house sales investigate if there is a difference in price in the houses with left-garages versus right-garages.
Then again, I hope I will never encounter the following discussion at the next open house I attend:
"The price seems a little high."
"Well, not really, because all the appliances are included, and the garage is on the right side."
And I now realize I've also wasted $8.40 worth of my time writing this... guess I'd better go to work and recoup it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Just be glad you have a garage in cruddy weather like this! I'm pretty damn sick of listening to my tires rub against the veritable icebergs entrenched in my wheel wells and undercarriage. After having a nice garage for nearly 6 years, I'd forgotten all about this problem. Just waiting for the melting to begin. Ugh.
Okay, fine. You win. Although I park overnight in Meredith's driveway on occasion (not that there's anything wrong with that), so I've had to endure some of that too...
Post a Comment