Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Is It Just Me?


These are our cars. Steve has a Prius, I have a 4Runner. I love my car, but most of the time I end up driving Steve’s car. Steve used to have a Celica, which I never drove, but now that his car is more environmentally friendly than mine I find that I drive his car more often than I drive my own.

The Prius has what is known as a “smart key” which means the car just knows when the key is near and the doors will unlock. The car will start if the key is merely in the car, no need for inserting or turning. My car does not have a smart key. You actually have to press a button to unlock the doors and put the key in the ignition. It’s primitive, I know. It can be quite schizophrenic going back and forth between the two cars. The other day the kids and I were in my car and they couldn’t figure out why it was taking so long to get going. It was because I was trying to start my car without putting a key in the ignition. I often forget which car I’m driving and end up wandering aimlessly around parking lots. (This only happens when I’m by myself; the kids always know what car we drove and where we parked. I love that about them.) Once I came out of a store laden with heavy packages and stood next to a silver Prius. I waited for the doors to unlock but they didn’t. I realized it wasn’t my car, so I found another silver Prius and stood next to it. Nope, not my car either. After the third silver Prius it dawned on me that I hadn’t even driven the Prius, I had driven my car. I learned a valuable lesson that day, there are too many silver Prius' in the world. Or at least in Northern California.

3 comments:

  1. It's not just you. I came out of Peet's one day and walked over to a Prius I thought was mine. I saw a bunch of boxes in the back that I didn't recogize so I figured it was another one of the thousands of cars identical to mine. I wandered around the lot for a while until I realized it WAS my car, the boxes were things you had bought. Doh.

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  2. I had a prius and a smartkey. I will never buy another car without one, although once my new smartkey car locked my baby inside. Not so smart.

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  3. I can't tell you how many times that has happened to me. I think sometimes I have so much going on in my mind or I am in such a rush that I just forget to focus where I parked the car. Of course when the kids are with me it never happens, they are always very aware of their surroundings.

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