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Weird Farce |
You don't usually get one until six months after you order it, so I left work
in the middle of the day to have a look. I was pouring with sweat after hiking
up Van Ness, but nobody at the dealership knew who'd left the message on my
answering machine about the Toyota Prius they'd have that afternoon. They called
their lot across town and said Rita could drive me to see the car.
Rita is a nice young lady from Hong Kong or somewhere who clearly hadn't been
hired to sell anything to customers who spoke English as a first language, and
while a Toyota dealership in San Francisco might have many good customers who
preferred to speak Cantonese, I came to assume they'd hired her so she could
drive people from one lot to another. Parking is hard to find in San Francisco,
so car dealerships have to leave their cars several miles away, just like anybody
else; so Rita borrowed a pristine Camry LE to drive me to where the other vehicles
were waiting, just as she had two weeks before, when my wife and I were looking
for something much cheaper and easier to find. I didn't mention that we were probably
going to get a used one in Redwood City the following week. Didn't see the point.
These people were nice. The nasty people at Downtown Toyota in Oakland had sent
us on a test drive in a Prius alone, with the automatic navigation system barking directions
at us - "Proceed point five miles! Left turn, point two miles!" It was like
having someone's grandmother in the backseat who grew up in in that neighborhood
and had to pee really bad, which was at least better than having one of the
rude, impatient salespeople along. This place was different. These people were
nice.
Making friendly conversation, I asked "So, are you a full salesperson,
or do you mostly help driving people around and stuff?"
"I Toyota Salesperson!" she said. My mistake. You might have expected her to
start telling me about the car at that point, but neither of us said much after
that.
It wasn't until we'd almost arrived that she told me that the only Prius they
had in stock came with three thousand dollars' worth of shit I didn't want built
into the dashboard, and that the price I'd been quoted was a "without-shit"
price rather than a "shit included" price. I figured I'd take it for a test
drive anyway, because I didn't want to waste the trip, and I didn't want to
embarass anybody, and I had some errands to run, and I hadn't had a car for
several weeks now, and they'd dragged me all the way out here with false information,
so I was gonna get a few things done before surrendering the keys. I thought
of it as my "lifestyle-test-drive" - how does it handle in the parking lot at
Cala? How does it look double-parked in front of the post office? How does the
emergency brake hold up in front of the haircut place in Pacific Heights?
We'd swung by the post office - parked in yet another Toyota lot next door -
and I figured I'd try it out on the hills between Geary and Market before allowing
Rita to drop me off at Safeway, where I'd pick up a few things and catch the
22 Muni to meet my wife for dinner. What freedom! I had to own one! (Car dealership,
that is.)
Insights come at the weirdest times. See, Fillmore between Geary and Haight
is not the best neighborhood - newish housing projects here and there; lots
of slow traffic, Muni busses in each direction filling both narrow lanes, parked
cars lining both sides of the street. Yet it wasn't until I was there, stuck
in traffic on a steep San Francisco hill, that I suddenly remembered I was driving
a car I didn't really know how to drive. The engine is electric, the gear shift
thing is this weird tentacle coming out of the dashboard, this car cost more
than I make in several months and dangerous vehicles were passing me in every
diirection. I might roll backwards into a stolen Lexus driven by angry lawyers.
Was I nuts?
I'd just take it easy. Didn't want to drive like a maniac with the saleslady
sitting right next to me and a photocopy of my driver's license sitting on her
desk. No problem. Hayes st. intersection - Yellow light? I slowed down, checked
out the car behind me in the mirror - also slowing, stopped - and sat on the
hill, behind the crosswalk.
BAM!
"WHAT THE FUCK?" I shouted. Rita got out of the car. The Honda Civic behind
us had smashed into our rear bumper. Minor dent, paint damage. (That's our car; her car wasn't old but
had numerous scratches and dents - not from today.) Nice old lady
was behind the wheel of the Honda; Rita was copying information from the lady's
license. I joined her in the middle of the street, careful not to stand between
the cars, lest the Honda leap forward again. Traffic sped past in the opposite
direction, a foot or two from where we stood.
The lady dug through her purse and her wallet and her glove compartment, saying
she couldn't find her insurance info. "I'm sorry. I'm eighty-two years
old. You have my phone number, dear. I ain't movin' anywhere. Call me when I
get home and I'll give it to you."
"The law says you need your insurance info!" Rita demanded
"I'm sorry, I don't have it," the lady replied, still digging through her stuff.
"I'm going to call the police! The law says you need your insurance info!"
Rita demanded.
"I'm sorry, I don't have it," the lady replied, still digging through
her stuff.
"I'm going to call the police! The law says you need your insurance info!"
Rita demanded.
"I'm sorry, I don't have it," the lady replied, still digging through
her stuff.
"I'm going to call the police!" Rita said.
A few cars and a Muni bus with the big overhead power cable things had already
lined up behind us.
I suggested Rita drive. We rolled up the hill in awkward silence, save for the calm rumble of the innovative 1.8 liter
electric-gas powered hybrid engine, the reliable power train, and the brand-new all-weather tires.
I struggled to look on the bright side. "Well, I'm glad to see the safety features worked well."
"Yeah," she said. "So, do you want to buy one? Want to place an order?"
