Auto-biography

I'm not a car person. I can barely tell you what color cars my friends drive, let alone the brand or year. When people are picking me up from a designated corner, I try to arrive a bit late so that they can honk as I near the car, or I ostentatiously read my book so that they must yell out the window to get my attention. Otherwise I end up approaching empty parked cars or alarming people as I try to open the front door of their car as they stop for red lights. It's awkward.

On my last plane ride, one of my seatmates (the one in the aisle seat I desperately coveted) had the mini section of the newspaper containing car advertisements. There were six pages of car pictures, brief descriptions, and prices. He pulled this out as we sat on the runway, and stared at the first page for the half hour we waited until takeoff. Having just begun a new John Grisham myself, I didn't look over again until the drink cart passed us. When I reached over him to accept my water, I noticed he was somewhere in the middle of the section. And our flight attendants passed again to collect our trash, he was finishing page six, and turning back to the beginning.
Now, I understand that not everyone travels with two books plus a Time Magazine for backup, but this guy was pushing the other extreme. Those photos of the cars are took up about one square inch each on the page, which must have hindered his ability to study the details of the automobiles. And how many times can one read "Dual airbags," really?

When I was a kid, my parents owned a white Toyota station wagon. The seating was covered in red velvet material, which in turn was covered in dog hair. The back door shook a bit when we drove on the highway, but the radio worked just fine. We joked that we could post some black construction paper over the side windows, and we'd have one stylish ride to school dances: long and white, with shaded windows - our own stretch limo.

Today, I live happily with my metro card, and depend on friends with vehicles for grocery shopping assistance. I nod blankly when coworkers complain about rush hour traffic and the lack of parking near our office. Sure, the metro track work always seems to be happening when I’m already late, and I invariably make it down the escalator just as my train is leaving, but that’s life. I’ve got an impressive-looking 900-page Scottish romance for en route entertainment. Best of all, I’m secure in the knowledge that whichever kind soul is picking me up from the metro will honk as I emerge onto the street five minutes late, sparing me the embarrassment of trying to climb into some poor stranger’s front seat.

NOTE: My mother emailed this note to me today:

You just proved you really don't know about cars. Our old station wagon was a Ford Crown Victoria. Toyota doesn't make anything as huge and ridiculous as our old station wagon. Neither does Ford anymore.