The Home Office On Wheels

 Before the pandemic I used to spend a lot of time in Starbucks, Biggby Coffee, or Panera Bread to write.  The problem when the pandemic shut those places down was I couldn't write there anymore.  A few ill-advised times they would reopen service inside but to sit around for hours writing and drinking coffee would be pretty fucking stupid so I obviously never did it.

When I did write I wrote at home but the reason I never liked writing at home much was there are all the distractions of TV, the Internet, and so on that can make it hard to focus.  Sometimes I would think, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if I had a trailer or van or SUV or something where I could set up a mobile office?"

Unfortunately it wasn't until about October that the thought hit me:  why don't I just move the front seat on the passenger's side up and write in the backseat?  And so I tried that.  It was a little snug because my Focus doesn't have tons of legroom but there was enough room to type.  And there's a cupholder in the backseat and the center console for beverages.  I have my MP3 player and a portable speaker or headphones to listen to music.  I also have a tabletop thing I bought a couple years ago to write in my recliner chair but it works even better in the car.  I can put my Chromebook on that and type away as well as in any coffee place--in some cases it's a less wobbly platform.

Most of the time when I did (and do) this I go to a park or the parking lot of a big box store like Walmart, Meijer, or Lowe's.  Those places usually have plenty of parking spots to spare whereas a minimall parking lot or somewhere like that might be more cramped and I don't want to take up space if I'm not really buying anything.

While this does usually work, there are some drawbacks.

1. Bathrooms!  The problem during the pandemic is you can't just run into a fast food or coffee place to use the can like the old days.  You could probably go into Meijer or Walmart or somewhere but that can still be risky.  Portable toilets are harder to find unless you want to try to infiltrate a construction site.  On Amazon you can buy a portable urinal like they use in hospital beds.  It looks sort of like a small gas can, where you piss into the hole.  They even can come with a hose and adapter for male or female genitalia.  But the problem is you can't do that very easily in a parking lot without risking someone might notice and call the cops.  Really the only other thing you could do is wear adult diapers.
2. Weather or Not:  Weather of course can be a big problem.  In the summer it gets hot and unless you want to run the car's air conditioner, it won't be very comfortable with the windows down.  Conversely in the winter it gets really cold and even if you had the heater on in the car before you stopped, it can start getting cold unless you're going to keep running the heater.
3. WiFi:  Something that can be good and bad is depending on where you park, you might not have access to WiFi.  Especially in a park there's not likely to be WiFi access.  Big box stores can be iffy.  I mean the Lowe's near me usually has WiFi I can access but the Walmart next door doesn't.  That can be good as it's less distraction but it also kind of sucks on a Chromebook where no WiFi means you can't save it to the Cloud, so you have to hope the device's limited hard drive will keep it until you can get WiFi access.  If you use a more traditional laptop then it wouldn't matter as much.

Anyway, with Year 2 of the pandemic coming up in a month, it's something to think about doing if you're a writer and you're tired of the distractions at home.  If you have a trailer or RV or van or something it would probably work a lot better than my Focus but if I can make it work in a small car, you can probably make it work with what you have.  I'm just saying.