Moochers Part 1: Cars

This moochers series will look at mooching from the perspective of the moocher and the moochee, and highlight polite ways to mooch each object for maximum efficiency.

Mooching is a fact of college life.  You simply cannot bring everything that you want to bring and still be able to see the floor in your dorm room.  So you kind of have to bring what you can't live without and hope that someone else will have brought that thing that you occasionally can't live without.  Borrowing, sharing, lending, whatever - it's all mooching.

Cars are a hot mooching commodity because there are far more moochers in need of rides than moochees with cars.  There is also an added complexity with cars because you cannot (usually) mooch just the car, you must also enlist the car's owner to drive it because you do not want to be responsible for their car (or, you don't want to lend your car to me because you know that I like to drive on the wrong side of dirt roads just because I can).

Moocher: Just know that gas costs money so if you want to go somewhere far away or somewhere that the owner of the car was not actually going, cough up.  Tagging along is the best way to mooch a car - wait for the owner to say, "I'm going to Fred Meyer, be back in an hour or so" and then pounce and ask if you can come.  If the driver doesn't immediately say yes, take the hint that you are unwanted and go back to trolling for rides - it helps if you don't smell like pot and if you wear a tight shirt.  This way you aren't really mooching, you are accompanying.  Pay for your driver's milk and call is square.

Moochee: Get ready because you will constantly be bombarded with requests to drive people places, pick people up from places, and carpool to places you aren't really going.  It might be best to conceal the fact that you have a car from people who seem needy and/or people who look like they might make a midnight Jack in the Box run and then be too tired and/or fat to walk all the way back and call you to pick them up at one in the morning.  Have a list of ready excuses for turning people down ("I have a class" works well, so does "Um, I hate you so no").

Polite ways to mooch cars: (has the word "mooch" lost all meaning to you yet?  It stopped being a word to me somewhere around the third paragraph) Plan ahead.  Plan.  A.  Head.  Plan a freakin head.  If you arrange in advance to go somewhere, it will feel much less like mooching and much more like a fun friendly outing.  Wear your seatbelt.  Don't call to get picked up unless it is an emergency.  Duh.  Don't be overly rowdy or stupid when riding in the car (don't flirt with other cars at red lights, don't throw things out the windows, don't bring along four other people that the driver doesn't know, especially if one of them may or may not be Darth Mal, wear your seatbelt).  Offer gas money - $5 per 15 minutes spent in the car in a good margin, more if you know you are inconveniencing your driver.  Wear your seatbelt.  Did I mention you should wear your seatbelt?