I knew that automobile ownership would corrupt my soul.

When I had no car, if the thought ever came into my mind, "I NEED a bottle of red nail polish," I would make a mental note of it and plan to pop into the dollar store the next time I was in the vicinity to see if they had red nail polish. Especially if the moment I had the thought, my nails were still freshly painted, and I had no intention of redoing them for at least several days. Or maybe I would walk to the dollar store and at least get some exercise in the deal.

But today, when the thought came into my mind, "I NEED a bottle of red nail polish," I finished reading the chapter I was working on (it was raining -- hard), and then got into my car, drove two miles to the drugstore, loitered there for an insanely long time dithering over which red nail polish to get, and wound up with three bottles of red nail polish (none of which, upon coming home and trying them out on my left hand, are really "it"). I wasted gas, time, and money, because it was convenient, because I have a car.

Actually, my soul was probably already corrupt before I got the car. The car just makes it easier to express certain forms of the corruption.