It seems (and this is abstracted from many hours of conversation) that when you are an able-bodied young male Shaftoe and you are a stranger in a strange land with a car that you have, with plenty of advice and elbow grease from your extended family, fixed up pretty nicely, the idea of
"The drive is not that far, Randall," says Robin, slapping the Impala's gas pedal against the floor to rip the transmission into passing gear, and careening around a gasoline tanker. From the initial "Sir" and "Mr. Waterhouse," Randy has been able to talk them down into addressing him by his first name, but they have agreed to it only on the condition (apparently) that they use the full "Randall" instead of "Randy." Early attempts to use "Randall Lawrence" as a compromise were vigorously denounced by Randy, and so "Randall" it is for now. "M.A. and I would be happy to drop you back off at the San Francisco Airport--or, uh, wherever you elected to park your Acura."
"Where else would I park it?" Randy says, not getting this last bit.
"Well, I mean that you could probably find a place where you could park it free of charge for a few days, if you did some looking around. Assuming you wanted to keep it." He adds encouragingly, "That Acura probably would have some decent resale value even considering all the body work it needs."
Only at this point does Randy figure out that the Shaftoes believe him to be utterly destitute, helpless, and adrift in the wide world. A total charity case. He recalls, now, seeing them discard a whole sack of McDonald's wrappers when they arrived at his house. This whole austerity binge has been concocted to avoid putting financial pressure on Randy.
Robin and M.A. have been observing him carefully, talking about him, thinking about him. They happen to have made some faulty assumptions, and come to some wrong conclusions, but all the same, they have shown more sophistication than Randy was giving them credit for. This causes Randy to go back and review the conversations he has had with them the last couple of days, just to get some idea of what
To Randy it's just been aimless ventilating. He hasn't even considered, until now, what effect it has been exerting on the trajectory of Robin Shaftoe's life. Randall Lawrence Waterhouse hates