Recently my wife and I drove to Edgartown to meet friends for an age-appropriate movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It was the 4:15 p.m. screening, so considering the movie, which we liked and now refer to as Slumdog Pensioners, the theatre was packed. After the movie we had an early supper at an Edgartown restaurant and drove home.

The key word in that paragraph above is “drove.” How else would you have gone from Vineyard Haven to Edgartown? Besides throwing spontaneity over for a bus schedule. Granted, the Martha’s Vineyard Regional Transit Authority offers one of the Island’s many benefits to seniors, a 50 per cent discount. Ferry passenger tickets are $3.75 each. Our Tisbury dump sticker is free. And there’s even discounting at some shops and theatres. Thank you very much.

But give up the car? I don’t think so. As much as I love living in Vineyard Haven because I can walk to so many places, as yet I cannot see life without wheels. And that means a car. I am no longer built for, nor do I have any desire for, traipsing around the Island via skates, bicycle, motorcycle, moped or Segway.

A car means you have your independence, like having a pair of wings in the wings. You always know, if the mood warrants, you can “fly.” I need a car. We need a car. But do we really need two cars?

We are one of those families with his and her cars. This means we have choices, too many of them. Now that my wife, our dog and I live in Vineyard Haven full time, we had to give serious consideration to the costs and kerfuffles involved in getting off and on and around the Island.

We breezed through our first complete summer last year with two cars at our home. Did we need two cars? Not really. In an emergency, there’s always the concept of borrow or rent. Zip Car is still not an option on the Cape and Islands. And, as yet, we do not have a Falmouth friend with a loaner.

So, my dear wife being a former consumer reporter, comparison shopping is obligatory. Mathematics and economics led us to four choices: (1) As a resident, taking a car for a round trip by ferry? $90. (2) Taking the ferry as a passenger and then a round trip bus to Boston? $67.50. (3) Taking the ferry as a passenger and then using a car parked in Falmouth, courtesy of the Steamship Authority at $50 per month? Well, you’d have to prorate the parking fee and amortize the use of the car and gas, but it would be less than the bus, most likely. Call it $25. (4) Never leaving the Island at all? Priceless.

At the end of last summer, we decided to keep one car in our driveway and one car in the Palmer avenue lot in Falmouth. Under the circumstances that seemed the least expensive way to be prepared for scheduled and sudden round trips.

Of course, going off-Island (usually for something work-related in Boston) just isn’t the same anymore. After living here for a year, I have adapted to the pace here. For the most part, people in cars on the Island are simply drivers going from point A to point B. There are no “simply drivers” around Boston — they’re road warriors, out and about seeking triumph or survival.

Melville’s Ishamel chose to go off the shore as a way of “driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.” Unfortunately, when I go off the shore, I go right onto another one. Once I’m in my car and heading into a jungle of cars, lights and signs, I become another person who wants to drive into someone’s spleen. And the only circulation that seems to get regulated, negatively, is my blood pressure.

With the exception of summer assaults, Island traffic actually is a showcase of momentum, freedom and fluidity. Off-Island, it’s all staccato: cruise and crunch, gas and brake, green and red. It’s more jamming than jammin.

When I’m now driving on the mainland, I fear I no longer have Bob Marley as my spiritual guide, but rather Jacob Marley. Allow me right here to put on my haiku brake.

Freudian signs warn

On winding ways, curved shoulders:

Beware hidden drives

Once I’m back on the Island, I feel mellow. Walking or driving. This now feels like home. I like the feeling and want to keep it. It’s like accenting the Zen in senior citizen! Especially on those days when you don’t feel like looking for the fun in dysfunctional.

So I will continue walking and driving — until the authorities inform me that my driver’s license has an expiration date. I will continue to enjoy my status as an elder. Getting a senior discount is like seeing the bright side of a near-death experience. I’m in good company. Look at it this way, I tell myself, no matter how old I am, Catherine Deneuve is just a year younger and Sophia Loren is eight years older!

Arnie Reisman and his wife, Paula Lyons, regularly appear on the weekly NPR comedy quiz show, Says You! He also writes for the Huffington Post.