Bob drove over in his new black
Prius. When he was getting ready to leave, he offered to show us the car. "You know what the
best thing about it is?" he asked. He told about how it averages 55 miles per gallon, and actually gets much more than that in the city, being that it's part electric.
Then he said, "But did I show you the
best thing?" And he pointed to an official gov't sticker on the side. "Do you know what that means?" To me it meant no more irritating and confusing trips to the smog test station. ("Sorry, ma'am, we're not a Smog Test-Only station, we're a Smog
Inspection station. You'll have to go somewhere else for that.")
(To the tune of $90.) To Bob, though, the sticker meant that he can drive in the carpool lane at all times, even if there's only one of him in the car. He mentioned the Bose sound system and the Smart Key.
"Oh, but I didn't show you the
best thing. Look under the hood." At this point I started getting that trapped feeling and started edging toward the house. But when he opened the hood, I was mesmerized. It was a
tiny,
ordered space. No mad scientist's dark oily gymnasium-sized laboratory of coils and hoses and weird black boxes, like under the hood of our family car. It was my first spark of Prius crush.
Then his eyes lit up. "But I haven't shown you the
best thing." He opened the the hatchback. He explained that when he and his wife hit the road, this was going to be their dog's quarters. He said his dog loved to look out the window while traveling. Not only was there the big window in the back, but a
second long, low window perfectly positioned for his dog to look out
while lying down. That settled it. I was in love.
