And they always try to park in "compact" parking spaces!
At 11:45 PM 9/1/99 -0700, David Riker wrote:
>>If there's one thing this nation needs, it's bigger cars. That's why
> I'm excited that Ford is coming out with a new mound o' metal that
> will offer consumers even more total road-squatting mass than
> the current leader in the humongous-car category,
> the popular Chevrolet Suburban Subdivision-
> >the first passenger automobile designed to be,
> right off the assembly line, visible from the Moon.
>
> >I don't know what the new Ford will be called.
> Probably something like the "Ford Untamed Wilderness Adventure." In
> the TV commercials, it will be shown splashing through rivers,
> charging up rocky mountainsides, swinging
> on vines, diving off cliffs, racing through the
> surf and fighting giant sharks hundreds of feet
> >beneath the ocean surface-all the daredevil
> things that cars do in Sport Utility Vehicle
> Commercial World, where nobody ever drives
> on an actual road. In fact, the interstate highways in Sport Utility
> Vehicle Commercial World, having been abandoned by humans,
> are teeming with deer, squirrels, birds and other
> wildlife species that have fled from the forest
> to avoid being run over by nature-seekers in multi-ton vehicles
> barreling through the underbrush at 50 miles per hour.
> In the real world, of course, nobody drives Sport
> Utility Vehicles in the forest, because when you
> have paid upwards of $40,000 for a transportation
> investment, the last thing you want is squirrels
> pooping on it. No, if you want a practical
> "off-road" vehicle, you get yourself a 1973
> American Motors Gremlin, which combines the advantage of
> not being worth worrying about with the advantage of being so ugly
> that poisonous snakes flee from it in terror.
> In the real world, what people mainly do with their Sport Utility
> Vehicles, as far as I can tell, is try to maneuver them into and out
> of parking spaces. I base this statement on my local
> supermarket, where many of the upscale patrons drive Chevrolet
> Subdivisions. I've noticed that these people often purchase
> just a couple of items-maybe a bottle of diet water and a two-ounce
> package of low-fat dried carrot shreds-which they put into the back
> of their Subdivisions, which have approximately
> the same cargo capacity, in cubic feet, as Finland. This means there
> is plenty of room left over back there in case, on the way home, if
> these people decide to pick up something
> else, such as a herd of bison.
> Then comes the scary part: getting the Subdivision out of the parking
> space. This is a challenge, because the driver apparently cannot,
> while sitting in the driver's seat, see all the way to either end of
> the vehicle. I drive a compact car, and on a number of
> occasions I have found myself trapped behind
> a Subdivision backing directly toward me, its
> massive metal butt looming high over my head,
> making me feel like a Tokyo pedestrian looking
> up at Godzilla. I've tried honking my horn, but the Subdivision
> drivers can't hear me, because they're always
> talking on cellular phones the size of Chiclets
> ("The Bigger Your Car, The Smaller Your Phone,"
> that is their motto). I don't know who they're talking to. Maybe
> they're negotiating with their bison suppliers. Or maybe
> they're trying to contact somebody in the same
> area code as the rear ends of their cars, so they
> can find out what's going on back there.
> All I know is, I'm thinking of carrying marine flares, so I can fire
> them into the air as a warning to Subdivision drivers that they're
> about to run me over.
> Although frankly I'm not sure they'd care if they did. A big reason
> why they bought a Sport Utility Vehicle is "safety," in the sense of,
> "you, personally, will be safe, although every now
> and then you may have to clean the remains
> of other motorists out of your wheel wells."
> >
> Anyway, now we have the new Ford, which will be even larger than the
> Subdivision, which I imagine means it will have separate decks for the
> various classes of passengers, and possibly,
> way up in front by the hood ornament, Leonardo DiCaprio showing Kate
> Winslet how to fly. I can't wait until one of these
> babies wheels into my supermarket parking lot.
> >
> Other motorists and pedestrians will try to flee in terror, but
> they'll be sucked in by the Ford's powerful gravitational field and
> become
> stuck to its massive sides like so many refrigerator
> magnets. They won't be noticed, however, by the
> Ford's driver, who will be busy whacking at the side
> of his or her head, trying to dislodge his or her new
> cell phone, which is the size of a single grain
> of rice and has fallen deepinto his or her ear canal.
> >
> And it will not stop there. This is America, darn it, and Chevrolet
> is not about to just sit by and watch Ford walk away with the coveted
> title of Least Sane Motor Vehicle. No, cars will keep
> getting bigger: I see a time, not too far from now,
> when upscale suburbanites will haul their overdue movies back to the
> video-rental store in full-size, 18-wheel tractor-trailers with
> names like The Vagabond. It will be a proud
> time for all Americans, a time for us to cheer
> for our country. We should cheer loud, because
> we'll be hard to hear, inside the wheel wells.
>
>
>
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