Getting Home

Last Friday afternoon I was on my way home. I took the bus from Harvard Square to Sullivan, and when I came down the stairs to the platform, the clock said 5:37 pm. It also said that a train would not be coming for nine minutes. That's an unusually long interval between trains during rush hour when no delays or problems have been announced, but I was not worried because I only needed to get two stops to Wellington in time to catch the 6:00 bus, and most afternoons it takes about five minutes to get from Sullivan to Wellington, with a stop in between at Assembly.

I didn't make the bus. I don't know why, other than that the train did not arrive until 5:54. As I watched the sign, the interval went form nine to 10 minutes and stayed there for four or five minutes. No announcement was made about a delay. Then the clock started to count down. When it got to one minute, the PA did the "the next Orange Line train is now approaching" thing, followed by "the next Orange Line train is now arriving." It did that three more times, but no train appeared.

Eventually a train did arrive, but by the time I got to Wellington, I had of course missed the bus. In fact, I was close enough to see it pulling away when I got outside. I didn't feel like waiting around in the heat for 20 minutes, so I decided maybe I'd see if an Uber driver was nearby. One happened to be over at Station Landing, only a couple of minutes away by car. Then I noticed a cab at the curb. I've been kind of down on cabs since alternatives like Uber and Lyft (which I have not used) arrived in the area. I thought I'd give a cab driver a break, and save myself the two minutes that I'd have to wait for the Uber ride.

I walked closer to the cab and saw that the driver was not inside, but he saw me and came running over. I told him my destination and he replied that I would have to tell him how to get there because he was new to the area. Of course, all the windows had been left open and he did not give me any indication that he was going to put on the air conditioning. I let it go, knowing I'd be in the car only a few minutes.

I have not taken a cab ride for a while, and I'd never taken one from Wellington to my house (it's only the past year or so that I've noticed cabs even waiting at Wellington, now that they have more competition). I figured it couldn't be more than about eight dollars, and I knew I had a five and five ones in my pocket. But the total for the ride turned out to be $10.10. I also had twenties, having been to the ATM that day, so I gave one to the driver. He told me he had only fives for change. I didn't know if this was some sort of a scam or just a newbie driver not having his shit together, so I took a five from him.

But me being me, I couldn't quite leave it alone, so as I was getting out of the cab I said, "You know, this is exactly why people use Uber." That hit a nerve. He started waving another five at me, saying, "Take it, ten dollars is enough." I turned back and replied, "No, you deserve a tip, but I should be able to decide how much of a tip I want to give you. I'm going inside now."

Out of curiosity I went to Uber's site and looked up the fare for the route I'd traveled. The estimate is six to eight dollars (it's not a long ride). And had I taken Uber, I would not have had to worry about whether or not I even had any cash on me.

Back Seat Rider

Last week I needed to use Uber, and my ride turned out to be a previous-generation Audi A4. I have a friend who has one (actually it's an S4, the sportier version, but it's the same car) but I'd never been in the back seat of his car. A couple of months ago I used Uber and my ride was driving a previous-generation BMW 3-Series sedan, a car I'd never been in before.

Both of these cars are often bought by image-conscious people. Neither car is particularly large, but when I use UberX the front passenger seat is usually moved all the way forward to maximize rear seat room for a single passenger. I found the BMW's back seat to be much more cramped and much less comfortable overall than the Audi's. This isn't exactly a surprise, but it was interesting for me to be able to confirm it personally.

I also wonder how the newer generations of these cars compare to each other. I don't think anyone buys either car because of its rear-seat room, but even if people aren't driving for Uber, they must have passengers in their back seats sometimes.

Car Stuff: Need a Ride?

Have you heard of Uber? If you live in or near a city of moderately large size, there's a decent chance Uber is operating there. It's a car service that lets you summon a ride by using a smartphone app (or by text message for those with regular cell phones). You set up an account and provide your credit card information, so that when you use the service no cash changes hands; the rides are billed to your credit card, and the gratuity is included in the fare.

I am not a frequent taxi user, but as someone who doesn't drive, there are times when I need another option for getting home (or to a destination other than home) besides the T. When Uber first came to Boston it operated as a "black car" service (think prosperous business types with expense accounts), but later they began offering a lower-cost option called UberX that is priced competitively with taxis. UberX drivers use regular cars, which are still way nicer and more comfortable than most cabs. (As a bonus, UberX fares were lowered a couple of months ago, making it likely that an UberX ride will now be cheaper than a cab ride.)

I first used the service in July when I needed to go to a medical appointment in Watertown and the Mrs. was not available to drive me. I could have gotten there via the T, but it would have taken an excessive amount of time and I didn't feel like setting out from home two hours ahead of the scheduled visit. I had a code for a discount on the first ride so I signed up and summoned my driver via the app.

For me, one of the more interesting things about using Uber is getting to ride in a variety of cars. When your ride is confirmed, the Uber app shows you the driver's name and what type of car they are driving. I suppose the intent is to give you an idea of what car you should be watching for, and I imagine this information is lost on many people who don't pay attention to cars or have a particular interest in them, but for me it's been a new, fun surprise each time.

I've used the service a total of five times so far, and each time I've ridden in a different type of car. My first ride was in a Volkswagen Passat, not the version currently on sale but the older one, which was still quite comfortable. (The Mrs. ended up having a current Passat as a rental in September while her car was being repaired, so I've been in one of those too.) Next was a Dodge Avenger, which is kind of generic and ugly and plasticky inside, definitely not a car that's going to impress anyone but probably a perfect car for this sort of situation.

My next ride was in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, but one that had been in use for a while. By my estimate it was about ten years old, and I was a little surprised that Uber would let a driver use a car of that age, but it got me home. In October I needed to get home from downtown on a Saturday afternoon, and the bus to our house runs only every 30 minutes on Saturdays so I decided to summon an UberX ride. This time my driver was piloting a nearly new Toyota Venza, which would be called a Camry wagon if Americans still cared about station wagons.

A couple of Mondays ago I had another medical thing, this time in Davis Square. That's a little less than 3.5 miles from our house, but getting there is convoluted. I have to allow at least an hour of transit time, plus whatever I have to add on to allow for the less than frequent bus where we live. It was raining steadily that morning, and I didn't get ready as quickly as I should have, so I ended up missing the bus I had intended to catch. UberX was the solution; my ride was a Ford Fusion, again the previous generation but immaculately kept and much nicer than the Dodge. The ride took all of 11 minutes, even in the rain. (After each trip you receive an emailed receipt with the distance traveled, time, and total charge.)

I have to make one observation about the drivers: many of them use GPS, which makes complete sense. But some of them lean on it a little too heavily, in my opinion. On my last trip I told the driver I was going to Davis Square. This is a prominent location, and anyone who lives around here and drives a car should have some idea of how to get there. The driver needed a street address to input the destination and start getting directions. I knew the name of the street but not the number, so I had to look it up on my phone. Then he said the GPS couldn't locate that street, but I think he may have mistyped it because on the second try it started telling him where to go. On some of my other rides the drivers were fine with me giving them verbal directions, like you would with a taxi driver.

There are always tradeoffs, and I find UberX to be highly preferable to a dirty, ancient cab with a worn-out suspension, where you have to ask the driver to turn on the air conditioning. In the future I will have a physical address ready in case a driver asks me for it.

(By the way, this is not a sponsored post, nor is it an endorsement. Other than the initial discount code, I've paid for my Uber rides with my own money. I'm sharing my experiences so that others can decide if Uber is something they are interested in using.)

Driver's Ed

Boston drivers are notorious for their lack of patience. If someone behind us beeps when a traffic light turns green, the Mrs. typically makes a comment to herself, or me if I'm in the car.

Yesterday, though, was different. We were at a T intersection, coming up the vertical part of the T and waiting to turn left. This particular intersection is tricky, and it should probably have a traffic light, but around here things often stay uncorrected like that a long time. (How long did it take for a signal to get installed at Packard's Corner?)

Without a light, we were forced to wait until the road was clear. A car came up behind us and before long the driver beeped the horn. Then again, then again. Beep. Beep, Beep. The Mrs. leaned out her window and yelled back at the other driver, "I can't go! There are cars turning in front of me!" (Her argument was bolstered at that exact moment by a car that turned and came past both of us. She gestured at it in case the other driver somehow hadn't seen it.) "If you don't feel like waiting, feel free to go past me!"

No more beeping.

Travel Thoughts

...and we're back. The traveling is over, for now. Our trips back from the west coast usually involve overnight flights. It's a bit of a hassle, but ultimately it's the simplest way to return. I would rather fly overnight and nonstop than have to deal with changing planes. However, I am almost never able to sleep on planes, so I have to plan on devoting the rest of the day to sleep and recovery. I hit my pillow around 6:30 am and woke up about seven hours later.

The San Jose airport is mercifully easy to deal with. It's not huge, but it's not so tiny that you have to disembark from the plane onto the tarmac. Everything is laid out very logically, and the signage is excellent. Even if you'd never been there, you could probably drive out of the rental garage and figure out which highway you needed to be on and how to find it.

Visiting northern California is always interesting to me. The climate is agreeable, the people are uniformly friendly (sometimes a bit too much so for a New Englander's comfort), and there are lots of old cars. And by "old" I mean cars that are 30, 40, maybe even 50 years old, being used as daily drivers. (The weather means rust just isn't the issue it is in the Northeast or Midwest.) This makes observing everyday traffic much more varied and colorful. Unfortunately the cars I saw were gone in a moment or two, so I wasn't able to get any pictures.

As for us, we were driving around in a rented Nissan Sentra, a car that can charitably be described as funny-looking. But it was comfortable enough and didn't use much gas, and when we got to the car return area at the airport, the check-in staffer told us to stay in the car and someone would drive us around to the terminal, so we didn't have to take the shuttle. It was a small gesture that made our lives a bit easier, but one I've never had another rental company offer, and it was appreciated.

Overheard: Musical Taste Police Edition

Have you noticed that when a car is blasting loud music, that music is generally not what would be considered good music?

This leads, sort of, to an anecdote. (Those of you on the facebook thingy may have already seen/heard this; I'm relating it primarily for the rest of us.) Our friend Dave (he of the Rationales) was driving around on a recent night, listening to The Smiths. While stopped at a traffic light a car pulled up next to him, and someone inside yelled, "Hey! No Morrissey in East Boston!"

I guess the good music will go unappreciated by the philistines anyway.

Masshole Moment

The other night we drove to the Station Landing complex at Wellington Circle. The parking lots there are a bit on the snug side, and just after we turned in off the road, there was a car ahead of us blocking the way, with its right turn signal on.

We waited a few moments to see if anything would happen, and then the Mrs. put up her hands with her arms out in a "what gives?" gesture, hoping the driver ahead would see it in the mirror. An arm appeared from the driver's window, waving us around. In this lot that is not always a save maneuver, but there were no cars coming in the other direction, so we pulled around the car.

As we came alongside, the driver looked at us and called, "Couldn't ya see my blinkah was on? I'm waitin' for a space!" The Mrs. looked down the row a few spots ahead of us, gestured, and said, "There's a space right there." The woman's face got red and scrunched into a scowl, and she bellowed, "I WANT THAT ONE!!" while pointing to her right, to a space occupied by another car.

We looked at each other, confused, and drove off. Later, as we were leaving, we saw the woman's car, backed into the very space she so desperately needed to park in. We wondered how many other people she had inconvenienced while waiting for that space. We wondered why that particular space was so important. The only thing we were able to come up with was the possibility that she worked in the Walgreens that faces that part of the lot, and wanted to be able to keep an eye on her car while working, but even that seemed kind of flimsy.

Road Hazards

Out on the road today, we were on the ramp from 128 south to the Pike westbound when the Mrs. suddenly jerked the wheel to the left to avoid something. I could only see a small blob on the shoulder, but she said it was a group of eight to ten ducklings, all clustered together, that appeared to be trying to cross the road.

It was like Make Way for Ducklings on the Mass. Pike, but where's Officer Michael when you need him?

Driving While Stupid

Every single one of you should go have a look at this article over at Car and Driver magazine's site. (Well, maybe not you, PB, because like me, you don't drive.) They devised a test to compare driving while drunk to driving while reading and sending text messages. Interesting results, to say the least.

Since our society is apparently too self-absorbed and stupid to realize just how dangerous this is (and people who do it will likely end up hurting or killing an innocent person while emerging unscathed but just as self-absorbed and stupid), I really wish some state government had the balls to pass a law making this behavior punishable by something like 90 days in jail and a $5000 fine. (While we're at it, I'm sure drunk driving laws could stand to be strengthened in most places.)

This Year's Model

On Friday night I went to the auto show. I go almost every year, usually with an old college friend who likes cars as much as I do. I made the Mrs. go one year, but she really wasn't into it. She likes her own car, likes that it gets pretty good gas mileage and handles well, but that's about as deep a relationship as she wants with a vehicle.

I, on the other hand, have been into cars for my entire life (which is pretty ironic, since I can't drive). I can remember trips to get Matchbox cars from the drugstore, where they were displayed in a big display case with little compartments for each of the 75 different styles they offered. I built Lego houses to match the scale of the Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars I collected, then moved on to plastic models of classic cars from the 1950s and 1960s.

Growing up, I used to hang around and make something of a nuisance of myself at both a Chevrolet dealership near where I lived and at a hot-rod shop on the corner of our street that was run by a neighbor. I can still look at a car and tell you the make and model, and probably the model year (or at least a range of years, since the details of grilles and tail lights no longer change every year the way they did in Detroit's glory years).

So even though the auto industry's sales recently plummeted to lows not seen in decades, my friend and I and a bunch of other people still paid to get into the convention center last week to look over and climb inside all the 2009 models. (Well, almost all of them: Bentley, Maserati, and Aston Martin all had their offerings behind railings, and the Porsches were locked. Last year the Maseratis were uncorraled and unlocked, so maybe that didn't work out so well for them.)

That's part of the reason why people go to these shows: it's not too often that the average person gets the chance to sit in a brand new Jaguar, BMW, or Mercedes-Benz. I like doing that, but I also enjoy getting a look at the more ordinary cars. A Honda Fit goes for around $15,000, and it's a tiny bit of a thing; when you first look at it, it looks like clowns should be jumping out of it, but then you get inside and realize the outside is something of a deception because it's amazingly roomy inside.

I'm six feet tall, so I like to do sit tests. I get in the front passenger seat and slide it back as far as it will go, to evaluate the legroom. Then I get in the back seat behind where I was just sitting to see how painful it would be to ride back there. I also note things like how low I have to duck in order to get into that back seat, and how close my head comes to the roof when I'm sitting inside.

Some SUVs and crossover wagons now come with rear seats that adjust forward and backward as well, which is pretty clever. The fact is, even though the American auto makers are suffering for their years of bad choices and putting profits ahead of innovation, they are now turning out cars that are genuinely competitive for the first time in probably two decades. Not all of them, mind you--the Dodge Caliber, for example, is a junky, miserable penalty box--but many are the legitimate equals of their foreign competition.

If you are in the market for a car, the auto show is a convenient way to get a close-up look at many different models all in one place. If you're not in the market for a new car, it's a way to spend a couple of hours on a Friday night with a friend. Or maybe you're like me, and you just like knowing that the charcoal perforated leather seats on the new Nissan Maxima have contrast stitching in bubble-gum pink (though on the web it looks closer to red).

Sportin' Wood

This goes a bit outside the usual scope of my ramblings, but really, shouldn't part of what I'm doing here be trying to expand your horizons? (Don't answer that.)

Anyway, this is actually right in line with one of my big personal interests: cars. I've been fascinated by and enamored of cars since I was about three years old. (It's a particularly pointed irony that I can't drive, then, isn't it?) Even though my family never had new cars when I was growing up, each time we traded in our car for another one was a big, exciting deal for me. As a kid, I was often tasked with looking through the used car ads in the newspaper to find suitable possibilities to see and test drive.

Over the years we had several station wagons, and about half of them were the kind with fake wood trim on the sides and back. (I wish I had some pictures, but I don't have access to them at the moment. Check out this site for scans of tons of vintage car brochures.) Several of our neighbors and friends' families had them as well. And the names they had: Kingswood Estate, Country Squire, Grand Safari, Sport Suburban. Smell that? That's the scent of pure marketing fantasy, cut with hot vinyl seats on a summer day.

The wood-sided station wagon is an icon of 20th century American car design, but as station wagons faded from popularity and were supplanted, first by minivans and then by SUVs, as the family-hauler vehicle, the vinyl wood decaling faded as well. Literally and figuratively, heh.

Which leads us to the point: someone has seen fit to bless the world with fake wood trim kits for modern cars. This is not exactly new; such kits have been around for the Chrysler PT Cruiser for a while. But this company, Woody Wagoons, has taken the idea a step many steps further, offering kits for cars like the Scion xB (the little car that looks like a saltine box) and the Honda Element (the car that looks like a slightly larger box with gray plastic fenders--how about it, DM?)

This is all gloriously cheesy, because these cars were never designed to have this crap stuck on them, plus the kits seem to be executed in a very amateurish way. The one that actually kind of makes sense to me is the Jeep Commander, because it's a spiritual descendant of those big old Jeep Wagoneers that used to come with wood trim in the 70s and 80s.

And when I first saw the new Ford Flex, I immediately thought, "someone needs to come up with a 'Country Squire' fake-wood trim kit for this thing," because Ford can call it a "crossover" if they want, but this car is a station wagon, and indeed a modern equivalent of that 70s suburban staple. But I have to be honest: I was wrong. The wood trim kit looks terrible on it. I guess you can't go home again after all.

Wrong Way

Driving through Medford Square last night around 7:15, on the one-way section of route 60 westbound between city hall and the light at Main Street, we encountered a car driving toward us the wrong way. Several cars honked at the oncoming vehicle. As we passed, we saw that the driver had her cell phone up to her left ear. Maybe she was trying to get directions?

Behind the Wheel

Last night we were invited to a casual supper at a friend's house, so on the way there we stopped at the grocery store to pick up the requested beverage and snack. As we pulled into a parking space, we saw a very elderly woman being helped to her car with her groceries by a member of the store staff. She was stooped and it seemed that she could barely walk.

I went inside and got the needed items. When I went to pay, the kid bagging was the same one who had helped the woman outside, and he and the cashier were talking about her, how frail she was, how banged-up her car was. I hadn't noticed that when I'd gotten out of the car, but as he continued, he gestured out the window and said, "She's still out there."

I went outside and saw she was indeed still parked in the same spot, but her car was now running. She had the donut spare tire on her left front wheel, and when I passed to the other side, I could see that the passenger side of the car was scraped from end to end, as though she had driven it along the side of a building or something.

She drove away oh so slowly, and we ended up behind her heading out of the parking lot. The Mrs. said, "She probably shouldn't be driving. She could be dangerous to other people as well as herself." I didn't really have anything to add to that, other than to agree. It's unfortunate, but often true, that as we age our bodies fail us in various ways.

I wondered if she had children, and if so, if they had thought about how to deal with the situation. And if she doesn't have any children, or any other close relatives monitoring her health and well-being, then whose responsibility is it? Should we have called the police? What would we have said? "Yes, there's a woman on Salem St. that we suspect is driving while old."

Wave That Flag

Boy, it's such a comfort to know that the state of Oklahoma is doing its part to support freedom and sustain our American way of life by issuing "Global War on Terror" license plates. Perusing the list of other special plates available, I see they also have NRA and pro-life plates. What's next, "Secure Our Borders" plates?

(Courtesy of the SmartRoutes "On the Road" blog.)

Dinged

The Mrs. and I went to the library, and on the way home we stopped to get something to eat. We were walking back to the car, which was parked in a lot behind the building. and turned the corner just in time to see someone backing out of a space and into the driver's side of our car. The Mrs. ran up and knocked on the other driver's window, which was a good thing because she was about to drive away. We're not sure if she even realized she'd hit our car.

Fortunately she was going very slowly, so there's only a tiny little dent no more than a couple of inches long. The other driver looked to be about eighteen and probably was not very experienced. I say this not to pick on her, but because there was a very generous amount of room between the row she backed out of and the perpendicular space where we had parked, and even as someone who doesn't drive, it was clear to me that she had more than enough room to negotiate out of her space without needing to get as close to our car as she did. Hopefully she will incorporate this incident into her future driving experience.

Oh, and by the way, Colleen's in Medford Square has decent sandwiches and excellent frappes.

Road Rage Champions

A couple of the car-oriented sites I read regularly mentioned this story about a highway project that drew so much road rage from drivers that the California Department of Transportation decided to close the road to traffic completely for the duration of the project. One worker was hit by a thrown burrito, one was allegedly clipped by a driver, and one guy threatened to climb a tower and start shooting at the road workers.

First, you have to wonder what sort of brain-damaged subhumans would commit acts of violence against the very people working to improve the road they use. The closure of the road in question has added miles and minutes to drivers' commutes.

Second, how is it that something like this hasn't already happened here in the land of the Massholes?

Road Work Ahead

On Sunday we visited my dad for Father's Day. It got me thinking about some of our family history, vacations and such.

In August of 1972, when I was about to turn nine, we took a two-week road trip from Rhode Island to Florida and back. The centerpiece of this trip was a visit to Walt Disney World, which had just opened the previous fall. Our vacations were always car trips, because air travel was still prohibitively expensive for a working-class, single-income family of five, but also because my father enjoyed driving. Typically we went to Cape Cod or Lake Winnipesaukee, but this was the biggest trip we ever took, and as family vacations go, it was a really good one.

I don't mean to skip over the trip itself, but one of the reasons it stays with me is because of something that happened on the way home. We were approaching Washington, DC, and there was some major road construction going on. I'm pretty sure my dad was trying to find the Beltway in order to go around the city, but we ended up in the wrong lane and soon found ourselves on an off-ramp, heading for an unplanned detour into downtown DC. My parents weren't big on museums and cultural attractions, so the sights and sites of our national heritage weren't intended to be part of the trip.

We passed a few landmarks, including the Lincoln Memorial. I remember that one in particular because that's when my mom pointed out the window and said, "Oh Johnny, look, can't we just stop for a little while, since we're already here?" My dad's knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel, and he yelled, "Shut up! Shut up! I can find my way back to the highway if you'll all just shut up!" I would have been happy to stop, but I also knew better than to try to win that argument.

Yeah, good times. I didn't actually make it back to our nation's capital until almost 20 years later.

Zoom

On Sunday, to my surprise and delight, the Mrs. bought a new car. This is a big deal for a few reasons. First, she really liked her four-year-old car, bought used three years ago, and likely would have gotten several more good years out of it. Also, she's the sort who has traditionally said she didn't believe in buying new cars because of depreciation and other negative financial reasons. Finally, she does not like to part with her money in general.

(I say "her money" because the car is not a joint investment in our household. Since I cannot drive, she decided a long time ago that it would not be fair for me to contribute to a vehicle's cost and upkeep. This is a very unselfish point of view, considering that I am a passenger in the car all the time. My part of the deal is that I am responsible for all video, audio, computer, and other electronics-related expenses, which I think is entirely fair, considering I would be buying those things anyway.)

This purchase came about because she kept getting letters from the dealer where she'd bought her previous car: we need your used car, we'll give you $X over Kelley blue book value, please come see us. At first she just ignored them, but then she started to wonder what they would offer her for the trade. The car was at about 55,000 miles, and the window of opportunity for a decent trade-in typically closes at around 60,000. So we took a drive to the dealer, in the midst of a nor'easter; consequently the place was pretty dead, so we didn't feel hurried.

She knew which model she was interested in, so it was a fairly simple matter of determining trim level and desired equipment, assessing the trade value, choosing a vehicle from inventory with the required features, and plugging in the numbers. I assumed we were merely involved in an exercise in the hypothetical, and I honestly did not expect her to go through with a purchase. But there were a few arguments in favor: slightly better gas mileage and decreased emissions, due to more sophisticated engine technology (good for the planet); added safety features such as anti-lock brakes and a phalanx of airbags (six in all); the added convenience of such things as radio controls on the steering wheel (which, it can be argued, is also a safety feature, since it lessens distraction while driving); and the purely subjective, such as deeper cup holders in a more sensible location and an iPod jack.

A car salesman is a car salesman, but the one we dealt with was fairly low-key, unlike some we have encountered in the past. Our favorite was the hipster type with a backwards Kangol cap who tried to rope the Mrs. by asking the classic "What if I could put you in a new car for the same monthly payment as a used car?" but was stopped in his tracks by her response: "Does it have at least 120 horsepower?" (It did not, which we already knew, but he had to look it up.)

It's also nice that this dealership orders a good selection of cars with all the available safety features, but without loading on thousands of dollars in unnecessary options, so there are cars from which the practical can choose. The final issue was color. The Mrs.' previous car was an extremely vivid shade of blue, one of the reasons she liked it so much. The new car was available in a similar hue, but only on the more expensive trim level she had ruled out, so other choices had to be considered.

There was a sort of eggplant shade she liked, but it came only with a beige interior, which she hated. Also, the Mrs. happens to be in a somewhat sensitive line of work (one of the main reasons I do not use my real identity in this blog), and ultimately she reasoned that a somewhat less, uh, memorable color might make a certain sense, so in the end she chose a gunmetal gray, which is quite attractive. Now, if those cup holders can keep her from spilling coffee in the car, everything will be fine for years to come.