those little hybrid cars ARE fun

[dragonlady7]

USA Today Drops Ann Coulter (Saw that link in Queen of the Wild Frontier's journal. Was amused by it and passed it on to Dave.)

Dave found and read the column in question (which began with the phrase "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston..." -- Oh yes, fair and balanced is so in this year). His feelings were hurt by the following assertion:

[...] liberal boys never try to make a move on you without the UN Security Council's approval. Plus, it's no fun riding around in those dinky little hybrid cars.

Dave himself is a sort of liberal boy who drives a Toyota Prius.
As his girlfriend, I feel the need to state several things, just for the record.

1. He's getting 50 miles to the gallon, highway, this summer. (Better than advertised.) This makes it possible for him to commute to Rochester three times a week and have it still be cheaper than moving.
2. It is a ton of fun riding around in a Prius, and I should know; we put 700 miles on it in one day this spring. (Note: Dave is six feet three. I am five feet seven and far, far from petite. It's not that we're midgets. It's a comfortable car.)
3. It is perfectly possible to have sex in a Toyota Prius. And that's a 2003-- the 2004s are even roomier.
4. He did not even contact the UN Security Council, much less wait for their approval, before attempting #3.

So THERE. Don't knock it till you've tried it, you creepy weird lady! THBBBPPT.

Comments

[qowf.livejournal.com]

This is one hell of a testament. Seriously.

I laughed at number three and four. I still am. Perhaps our next car shall be a Prius.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

A dude on a Harley at the local gas station told me with some disgust that there was an 18-month waiting list for 'em.

I feel very cool. Dave bought his before the trend hit, though apparently after Natalie Portman bought hers at the same dealership.

Another bonus-- distinctive headlights. I see them pulling in the driveway now. Yay!

But yes-- I am not exaggerating about the miles we've logged on that thing, nor am I lying about the, uh, other stuff. Yes, we're both in our early twenties, but we're neither of us athletic or particularly flexible. :)

[qowf.livejournal.com]

You also get tax breaks owning them. They talked about the waiting list at the convention tonight and about the need to bring hybrid vehicle construction into the states to create jobs and foster both the economy and the environment.

You guys are ahead of trend. You are trend setters. Better yet!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Meh. The tax break (there was only one) wasn't much. He got to take $2000 off his income (that's what a "deduction" means). So it saved him, like, fifty cents.
OK, really, it was like two hundred bucks.

Yeah. That's not really "tax breaks", but I mean, $200 is $200. (He says he wishes he'd invested it in oil futures.)
Also, they made it extremely difficult to actually take the deduction. You had to actually write it in the margin, because there was no room on any of the forms for it. They didn't really want you to take it. Also, it was supposed to be phased out this year, but I guess they changed their mind.

In the end, he breaks even. It's a Toyota Echo, for $9K more, but over the lifetime of the car you'll save a ton of money on gas, and it is far, far, far cooler to drive. He's had it a year and a half and still loves to drive it. Which I think makes it worth it-- he hated his last car, and that colored his whole outlook on life, since his commute was 2 hours total a day.
But honestly, he's had it since Feb 2003, and he still tells me about how cool it is. (Today, after the 60-mile drive from Rochester, he stopped at the end of the block and drove it in 'stealth mode' [silent, electric-only] for the rest of the way home.
He's still amused enough by stealth mode that he gets a kick out of stealthing into the garage for his oil change and startling the hell out of the mechanics, because really, it makes no sound.

Another bonus is that the maintenance plan is included in the Prius's sticker price. So instead of $500 every 10,000 miles, it's all prepaid, because they don't honestly know how these cars are going to age. (They've a pretty good idea by now, but they still want to see them.)

So yes. He was cool before it was cool to be cool, and had never been cool before, so it remains really cool to him to be so cool. (I asked him a couple of details for this comment and he hasn't stopped talking, twenty minutes later.)

It'd be nice if it were made in the U.S., yes... Toyota has a big plant in Ohio (so you don't get beat up in Buffalo for driving an 'import' if it's a Toyota, though you get looked at askance because Ford and GM are the big two with engine plants in Buffalo so everyone and their mother drives Saturns), but the Priuses all have to be shipped over from Japan. (Dave's had a dead battery from sitting on that boat when we test-drove it, so one of the first things we learned is that it'll take a normal jump-start but the battery's in the trunk.)

Dave'll rave for hours about how cool his car is. I distracted him just now by making him do the dishes, but I may not be so lucky next time. So if I disappear, I'm probably listening to Dave talk about his car. Hopefully, we're parked on a dark street at the time, with the windows rolled up and the headlights off... but he is a liberal after all so we can't make any guarantees about such mundane matters as libido.