I started driving a car when I was 18 (that’s a long, long time ago) and I have more miles under my belt than I care to remember, but operating a modern vehicle today is a quantum leap forward for many middle-aged drivers.
First of all, modern cars don’t have ignition keys. It is too “passé”. They have a power button and when you push it the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree.
And your heart goes pitapat, pitapat.
It is like an electronic version of Jeeves awaiting your commands.
Modern cars are loaded with Star Wars’ features and it could take you more than a month to become thoroughly familiar with all of them.
It is also a dangerous period, because (like a teenager) you might be tempted to experiment with any of those features while driving and lose control of the chariot.
Fortunately most of these cars are equipped with Forward collision warning with auto-braking (a life-saving feature) and with a little luck, it will stop by itself before hitting anything.
Most of the modern cars sport the following features:
- Navigation system
- Forward collision warning with auto-braking
- Lane departure warning
- Blind spot warning
- Adaptive headlights
- Automatic high beams
- Adaptive cruise control
- Voice controls
- Back-up sensors
- Back-up cameras
- Tire pressure monitoring system
- Electronic stability control
You are sadly deluding yourself if you think that you can go to a dealer to just “kick the tires” of a new vehicle.
The minute you put your derrière in the driver seat, and especially when the dealer says nonchalantly “take it out for a spin, I have some paperwork to do” you are hooked! Regardless of what you promised your wife, your priest or your parole officer.
Holy mackerel! This chick magnet is too much! All these buttons…
Where is the missile launcher button?
P.G. Wodehouse wrote (I penned the first sentence):
After driving a new car and going back to your clunker, “You experience the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.”
Before you know it, forswearing anything you ever said, you are signing a bunch of papers, shaking hands with your new BFF and transferring all your belongings from your old car to your new Star Wars ship.
No matter how hard you tried, you were a goner you the minute you stepped into the showroom.
Don’t feel bad. The seductiveness of a modern car is more powerful than the sex appeal of Alexandra Daddario and Marilyn Monroe combined, and I promise you that you will remain on Cloud 9 for at least 3 months.
Ignition, get set, Shazam!
Alain
S for the Wisdom of Solomon
H for the Strength of Hercules
A for the Stamina of Atlas
Z for the Power of Zeus
A for the Courage of Achilles
M for the Speed of Mercury