Day eight: Yes, I know the bus stop is dirty.

My husband has not yet come to see things my way.

Earlier today, we discussed, briefly, the possibility of selling our Buick, which is used as a second car and rarely driven more than six miles a day. It wouldn't be like giving up driving entirely, and in the end, I think we'd save money.

Just yesterday, our local paper ran yet another story about gas, this one about crude oil prices hitting an all-time high, yet again.

Anyhow, a few hours after I shared my thought about selling our gold hooptie, we were waiting for the Green A in the downtown Bloomington main terminal and my husband rethought my request. Having grown up in the lush city of Tulsa, with its winding subdivisions and clear-cut borders of race and class, he was unfamiliar with any notion of homelessness and less than comfortable sharing space with it on a city bench.

When a women got on the bus today with a cart full of black plastic bags, my husband felt a twinge of guilt for exposing our children to this side of life.

Me? I thought, “I need to get one of those carts. Grocery shopping would be a snap.”