Official Pious Driver (3)
Posted 2 August, 2007 in preconceived notions
Yes… I am officially a douche.
Let me explain. My friend M and I like to make fun of things that people generally consider sacred. It winds people up to no end, and it’s hilarious. “The Beatles suck,” we say, and wait for someone to be outraged. The Dalai Lama would also be a good target, but we haven’t got around to mocking him yet.
Recently we have been making fun of people who drive the Toyota Prius. No one can deny that the Prius is a great idea, except perhaps the CEOs of Exxon or Arco. Prius drivers should be proud of themselves for purchasing a car with such low emissions. Some of these motorists, however, use this vaunted ecological status as an excuse to drive like they’re the only cars on the road. In keeping with our custom of mocking all things unmockable, M recently decided that all Prius drivers are douches. I immediately agreed with him, just for the craic. It seems we are not alone in our Prius hatred: My brother T came to visit a couple of months ago. We were hanging out on my front porch when he pointed at a squat Toyota parked on the street and muttered, “Look, it’s a Pious.”
I heartily jeered at the nasty little flat-butted cars and their holier-than-thou drivers until yesterday, when I eagerly became one of them. My own car was overdue for a service. The brake-pad warning light had been on for about a month, and it was starting to freak me out. Add to this the fact that whenever I tried to pump gas, the tank rejected the nozzle with a click, unless I held the nozzle at a ridiculous angle and leaned against it with my full body weight, hunching over as if I was trying to huff the fumes. And driving in stop-start traffic along Laurel Canyon, the car would jerk and shudder like the gears were slipping. It was time to fix that shit up.
For my last service, I’d been to a crappy mechanic who’d overfilled the oil and bodged together my broken wing mirror so that every time I tried to adjust it, it groaned and creaked as if it resented me horribly, then just refused to move altogether. I picked a better mechanic this time, even though I knew it’d cost me more money; better that than a half-assed service. I dropped off the car last night. After telling the guy the many things that were wrong with it, I signed the paperwork and handed over my key. He asked me if I needed a rental car, and pointed to the Enterprise booth in the corner of the garage. “They’re free,” he said.
Awesome! What a great service to offer at a mechanic shop. The “free” aspect of it made me suspect that my mechanic bill would be even higher than I thought it was going to be, but my alternative was renting a car for actual money, so I went for it. The guy took me out into the lot and showed me the cars they had available. “We have a Cobalt…a Neon… a Prius…”
“Ooh! Can I have the Prius?” I am ashamed to admit I said.
He showed me how to start the car. It has a Power button! And you press another button to put the car in Park! Plus it has a nifty little screen showing how much power your battery has, and the power goes up as you drive, and it is in different colors the more power it has! And you can see the climate and audio controls on the screen too, and you can touch the screen to select them, like an ATM! And you can hardly hear the engine! Super awesome.
When I got home, I told O, “I got a Prius!”
“OK,” he said, slightly puzzled at my excitement, and went on watering the plants.
The traffic had been like treacle on my way home from the mechanic, so I hadn’t really had a chance to test the Prius’s mettle until this morning, when I took it to work. At first, it scared me a little, because I seemed to be accelerating so fast. Then I noticed that the speedometer is in kilometers, not miles. It’s quite a zippy little car - it has good pickup and nice tight brakes. It feels a bit flimsier than my regular car, which is quite a bit heavier and takes corners better. The Prius bounced around a bit more. The sound insulation wasn’t nearly as good, and nor was the audio system - in my car, I can hear the radio while I’m on the freeway with the windows down. In the Prius, I had to crank the volume. Even with the windows up, I could still hear a fair amount of outside noise.
On the downside, it has terrible visibility. The weird slanted back window is hard to see out of, and the side mirrors are sometimes obscured by the window frames - I know this is unavoidable with all cars, but it seems to be especially bad in the Prius. I’m also not quite sure why the dashboard display is set so deep, and why the indicator stick is so far forward. And I wish there was a cover over the mirror on the sun visor - I want to shield my eyes from glare without having to catch glimpses of my chest while I drive.
I’ve already gotten some scathing looks from fellow drivers, but I get those in my own car anyway - it was my mom’s old car, and it is far too nice for me to ever afford, so I am sure people think my rich husband bought it for my ditzy ass. I like to think I buck both the eco-snoot and dumb-chick trends in terms of driving: I never talk on the phone, eat, or fiddle with makeup in my car. I love to drive, and I do so assertively and observantly, paying attention to other cars on the road, driving neither too slowly nor too fast, and trying not to cut people off or make sudden, oblivious maneuvers (or manoeuvres, if you prefer). Still, a douche car is a douche car is a douche car - really, I’ve just moved from one genre of automotive doucherie to another.
The mechanic claimed my own car would be ready by the end of the day today. I’m not quite sure I believe him, just because I’ve had so many mechanics take extra time (or not estimate it properly to begin with), but if he is telling the truth, I will have to give up the Prius this evening. I’m not sure I’d buy one, but I’m surprised by how much I like the car. I expected it to be like the PT Cruiser: all flash and no pickup. Still, it is an ugly little thing; I do want to buy a hybrid, but I think I’ll wait for the next generation, which will get better MPG - and perhaps also look halfway decent.
All in all, the time I’ve spent being a douche has been pleasant (and eco-friendly!). I will have a nice, douchey drive home this evening, and then I will surrender the Douchemobile back to the Enterprise guys. Then I will climb into my own personal douche-voiture, and douche off into the sunset, belching fumes and guzzling gasoline, pious no longer.