Don’t Do Me Any Favors
Car manufacturers, in an effort to distinguish themselves from one another, are coming up with clever gadgetry. But do we really want it?
By Janis Hirsch
Cup Holders Are For Wimps
I will do anything to avoid work. Once I couldn’t make my deadline because I just had to wash the inside of my fireplace. I have been known to separate belts by color and width even though I haven’t worn a belt in 15 years and have no plans to wear one in the future.
Today’s diversion was to read, in depth, the Business Section of the Los Angeles Times. The next time you’re feeling sleep-deprived, bone up on Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed mortgage news. You’ll awake an hour later, refreshed and rarin’ to go as I just did.
But then this story caught my eye: Honda’s Odyssey Touring Elite fully-loaded package includes HondaVac, thus allowing you to vacuum your entire mini-van in a flash. Is this good news or bad news? I can’t decide.
Believe me, if I had a vacuum built into my car, I’d use it. If I had a built-in blender, hairdryer or carving knife, I’d use those too. We live in our cars. I’m sure purists were appalled at cup holders when they debuted: “What kind of candy-pants is too good to hold her burning hot coffee between her thighs like every other woman in the world? Burns heal. Crotches damp with spilled coffee give a gal character, for Pete’s sake.”
Now I Gotta Do Housework In The Car, Too?
I’m all for innovation. Ford’s kick-activated tailgate blows me away. Cars that unlock without fishing through your purse for the key changed my life. That nice lady who lives in my dashboard and tells me when to turn left and then when I’ve turned right by mistake doesn’t yell at me like some husbands I know but calmly recalibrates her directions.
And car interiors get filthy: dogs, kids, beach towels, bikes, drive-thru French fries, science projects, Kashi Go-Lean cereal you eat to keep yourself from fainting on the way home from the grocery store even though it’s so crunchy you could break a tooth – all things a handy vacuum could banish from memory.
But come on, do I really want to do housework in my car? Not that I want to do it at home (if you think NATURE abhors a vacuum…) but I get in the car to get away.
If We Give Into The Car Vacuum, What’s Next?
Is this weird? I don’t listen to the radio at home, even if I’m home when “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” is on. I don’t listen to music at home and yet I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in my garage risking carbon monoxide poisoning just so I can finish singing along with Kelly Clarkson or Bruce Springsteen or anyone singing anything from “Wicked.”
Because when I’m at home, there are a bazillion other things I could/should be doing or at least there are a bazillion things someone in my family thinks I could/should be doing. But my car is my haven. Even if I’d doing a truly odious errand (ever have a pet with an anal gland issue?)
