A few years ago, my Aunt Beck proposed that, rather than having a traditional gift exchange, we would have a white elephant. Here’s why this idea sucks.
For those of you who don’t know what a “white elephant” is, allow me to explain. In a white elephant gift exchange, each person wraps a gift. More often than not, this is a gift that is
a. Silly
b. Found at their house
Some method is devised to get each person who is participating to select one gift from the pile (pulling numbers from a hat, etc). As your turn comes up, you can either choose to open a wrapped gift from the pile OR take someone else’s already opened gift. That person then has to select and unwrap another gift. Most often, this is good fun, with people taking each other’s gifts, laughing at the silly things that people bring and then typically asking, “So what are we going to do with this anyway?” on the way home.
That’s how it is supposed to be.
That is how Ms. Kitty and I interpreted it.
We were wrong.
The first year the family did this, we brought a 5 lb Santa Claus candle. The thing stood about a foot tall and was ridiculous. Great white elephant gift! We thought. When my Aunt Beck, who brought up the idea in the first place, opened the Santa, she frowned and said, “Well, that’s a weird gift. Thanks, I guess.” Remember this, because this response is important later.
Other reasons the white elephant failed that year:
- Gift selections were succeeded by explanations that “This gift was really intended for _____”
- No one took anyone else’s gift.
- Most gifts were store-bought.
- Most gifts were sensible.
- Aunt Beck handed out gifts to most people despite her orders that no one was to bring gifts for specific people.
In other words, it was kind of pointless.
Fast forward to three weeks ago and I learn, via text, that this year’s family Christmas get-together includes a white elephant gift exchange. I immediately called my mom.
“What are the ground rules for the white elephant?” I asked.
“I know. Last time,” my mom replied.
“Last time was a sham!” I interrupted. “We need to know that everyone understands what a white elephant is or I’m not doing it.”
“I think it has been explained since last time,” mom reassured me.
“Well, what are you bringing? ‘Cause I’m not bringing something silly just to have it mocked again when nobody else brings stupid gifts,” I said.
“You could just bring candy,” mom suggested.
Good thought, mom. I bought a package of peanut brittle and a package of peanut crunch. If the person was allergic to peanuts, I’d simply tell them to grow a pair and that their allergy was made up. Eat it!
Along comes the day of the reunion. There are a whole lot of people who look similar to what I hope not to look like but fear is inevitable all in one room. Yes, this is my family. Tattoos are displayed, assault rifles are handled and, look, there’s even potato salad. Thankfully, only a few regrettable remarks are made. Contrary to what you might think, not a single drop of alcohol is available. Pity.
“Gather round for the white elephant!” My Aunt Beck calls.
Around the circle we go, each person picking out a gift. Ms. Kitty and I only brought one gift, so I inform everyone that the gift she picked (a set of erasers; don’t be jealous) is all we’ll be taking.
“Oh, go ahead,” implores Aunt Becky. “I brought four extra.” See! Already, you’re breaking the rules! Fine. I approach the rather large grouping of bags with tissue paper spilling out and gaily-wrapped packages. I ask, “Are all of these for the white elephant?”
“Yes, yes,” comes a chorus of answers behind me.
“Are you sure all of these are for the white elephant?” I ask a little louder.
“Yes, they’re all for the white elephant,” I hear in response.
It should come as little shock that the first bag I pick up is joined by the rising voice of my Aunt Beck quickly informing me that, “That one’s not for the white elephant!”
“Am I talking to myself?” I ask, standing alone in the middle of the living room in front of a 15-ft Christmas tree with all eyes on me, hands in the air and head tossed back. “Did no one hear me ask what was for the white elephant?” A couple of my relatives make for the middle of the room to pull back gifts from my feet to the outskirts of the circle. After all of the non-white elephant gifts have been pulled back, I select a gift that will surely join the erasers on a trip to Goodwill.
I’m already frustrated, despite being filled with holiday ham.
Other gifts are opened. Most, including the stuffed Santa’s ass ornament and the Butt-head game are purchased from online “humor” sites. No one takes anyone else’s gift, despite my Uncle Jimmy openly pining for the Santa ornament. Everyone just goes around in a circle opening gifts that no one will keep.
Then, the coupes-de-gras! Aunt Becky selects the present that Ms. Kitty and I brought; lots of peanut candy. She unwraps it and exclaims, “This is really nice! This isn’t a white elephant gift.”
Screw it, I’m done.
Cutting the fat and the bone
I’ve been infuriated by the “progress” made by the Congressional Super Committee as of late. As everyone who listens to any form of news has heard, the November 23 deadline is quickly approaching to cut 1.2 trillion dollars (that’s “trillion” with a “t”) from the spending budget over the next 10 years. If this 12-member committee fails to reach an agreement, then the debt-ceiling-raising-agreed-upon sequestration will occur which will automatically cut $600 billion from defense spending and $600 billion from domestic spending over 10 years.
It looks like they are going to fail.
So, what do the Republicans start to do? Why, talk about re-writing the split so that there are no cut s to defense, of course!
Here’s the thing, no one wants to see defense budgets cut on either side of the aisle, but there’s a pretty decent majority of Americans who don’t want to see those domestic programs cut either. On the defense side, we’re looking at having to cancel next generation bombers, the new littoral class submarines, European missle defense shield and one leg of the nuclear defense triad. Domestic cuts would see programs in public health, disease prevention, renewable energy and the environment slashed beyond feasibility.
These cuts have been called draconian, terrible and destructive. Know why? Because they are! They are supposed to be! That was the stick to try and get the mule to come to an agreement with the elephant. That’s what Republicans demanded in exchange for raising the debt ceiling last summer. You can’t go back and say that you want to re-engineer the cuts because you’re no longer happy with the split that you called for.
The core of the issue is a fundamental difference in how the two parties see the US getting out of the current recession (which will surely be called a depression by future historians). Democrats believe that government spending to create new jobs as well as increasing taxes on segments of the population (read: rich people through closing tax loop holes and higher rates on things like capital gains) will get the gears of progress oiled up and running. This will lead to short term deficits that will be paid for by said increased revenues as well as the larger tax base that is generated later on as the economy progresses. The Republicans, on the other hand, believe that it can all be done through spending cuts. They will not even consider tax increases in any form, be it the closing of high-income loopholes, corporate tax breaks, or raising rates on items like capital gains, despite the fact that closing high-income tax code loopholes alone would generate $1.2 trillion. WAIT! Does that number sound familiar? They won’t do this, however, because Grover Norquist has nearly every Republican by the short and curlies due to their having signed his pledge NEVER to raise taxes in any form. Should a Republican violate this pledge, they will almost certainly not win re-election as the Americans for Tax Reform will come down on them full force.
Although Republicans like to believe that cutting taxes for the rich leads to job growth, the trickle down effect has never really been validated in the real-world. You can check the poster-child of Trickle Down Economics, Ronald Regan, and his record: tax increases 11 times in 8 years. Regan saw that cutting taxes and spending can go too far. At some point, you have to pay the bills. You can only cut so much. Rolling Stone is far more thorough than I can be.
I’ve thought to liken our current economic problem to this metaphor. Let’s say that you’re morbidly obese; something I’m sure most of my readers won’t have to imagine. Your doctor says, “You have to lose weight immediately or you’re going to die.” You go on a crash diet; water, lettuce, tomatoes and kidney beans. You stop going out with friends because of the temptation to indulge. You come home directly after work because going out means that you might miss your scheduled salad time. Things are starting to turn around. Then your doctor asks, “Have you considered exercising as well? Not only will it help you burn calories, but it will also strengthen your muscles, give you more energy and allow you to eat more of the things that you enjoy.” “No,” you reply, “I think I’ll just keep cutting the calories.”
Can you get to a healthy weight by cutting out everything you enjoy alone? Sure, but who wants to live that way?
Can we get to a balanced budget by continuing to slash spending? Sure, but what kind of country will we be when we’re done?
Getting used to others’ definitions of “safe”
It is finally getting cold.
For the last two mornings, I have had the joy of sitting in my car for around 5 to 7 minutes while I wait for the defroster to melt the ice on my windshield. This is something I forgot about during the six and a half years I lived in Southern California where they don’t have weather, much less ice. It is my little time in the morning to relax, despise leather seats and think about why, in fact, I moved here. I could use an ice scraper and be off to work more quickly, but I don’t own an ice scraper and then I would get to work more quickly, so I wait.
Some people, however, do not.
As I leaned down to look up at the red light beneath the Miata’s painfully-low roof line, I saw something across the intersection that seemed out of place. There, second car back, was a Chrysler Town & Country whose windshield didn’t look like everyone else’s. Rather than being, you know, transparent, it was opaque with the exception of two 6-inch holes; one on the driver’s side, one on the passenger’s. Now, being a man of science, I developed a hypothesis that this driver was a harried moron that couldn’t be bothered to take the time to remove the thin sheet of ice from their car and would rather put themselves and conceivably the children in the van (because why would you own a minivan if you don’t have kids) as well as every other driver on the road in danger. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to test my hypothesis.
As the light went green, I looked over as I passed the van, positive that the driver was not able to see out of the 6-inch hole in the ice. The reason I was so sure is that when your car’s defroster initially melts the ice, it doesn’t get rid of it altogether. Rather, it melts it just enough that you can use your windshield wipers to move the slushy mess out of your line of sight and to the sides. There were none of the telltale lines that the wipers had been used. Luckily, my eyes confirmed that she was not using those ports in the ice for vision. Rather, her torso and neck were stretched to her roof so that she could look through the thin 1-inch line across the top of the windshield that had not iced over.
Well done, ma’am. Well done.
Where the rubber meets the service counter
When you start working on a car, you begin to notice things that can sometimes be overlooked. Last weekend, while trying to figure out why my emergency brake was not engaging, I realized that my new-to-me Miata was wearing 3 different brands of tires. I had seen that the fronts matched (Hankook Ventus Sport 104’s) when I bought the car, and wrongfully assumed that the rubber in the rear was the same. What I found was one all-season BF Goodrich and some other piece of Vulcanized rubber from a company called Nankang. I’m guessing that they were whatever was lying around at the dealer where I bought it.
Nevertheless, all four tires needed to be replaced since the Hankooks were old, dry-rotted, cupped and one had a nail in it. And those were the ones I liked.
The problem with knowing something about cars is that you get picky about components, particularly something as important as tires. This is not something that the folks working the counter at the tire stores seem to understand, which leads to what I was thinking about after a couple of encounters with them.
On Saturday morning, I went off to the local Pep Boys and then to Ken Towrey’s Performance Tire to see what I could get. My wheels use 195/50R/15 tires. I won’t get into speed ratings, treadwear or those kinds of painful decision points, but those of you who don’t know, the main number you need to recognize there is that it goes on a 15” wheel which, as I quickly found out, no one uses any more. Stupid donks. Anything I want has to be special ordered. I can’t wait till I have a sidewall go out.
That’s fine. I can deal with that. But, the response to this quandary at each store is what intrigued me the most. The guys behind the counter would politely tell me that tires would have to be ordered, and then ONLY gave me the lowest-cost option. This goes against every instinct I have as a marketer!
First, you don’t know what kind of tires I’m looking for aside from the size. Have you asked if I had anything in mind? Perhaps I’ve done research and have a particular brand and model in mind. No one did this and immediately assumed that I would be interested in basing my choice on price alone. A few simple questions would have helped establish a better understanding of what I am looking for in a tire. Even a simple, “Are you looking for economy tires or performance tires?” would have put you on the right path. But they made assumptions as to my motivations, incorrect assumptions that should have been obvious within as little as 2 minutes.
Why? Look out the friggin’ window at your parking lot! I just told you I drive an 11-year-old impractical roadster in a region of the country that gets regular downpours and snow during the winter. It should be evident by my choice of car that I can be talked into things that don’t necessarily make sense for most people. I’m sure that the lowest-cost tire is what most people want since it involves the least expense of time, money, thought and effort involved to get them back on the road on their way to the next big box store. Maybe I’m not most people in this situation! Take advantage of this opportunity! Since you have to order the tires, no matter what I get, why not try and talk me into something pricier rather than what you (don’t) have on the shelf to seal the deal today?
Lastly, don’t you think you should give me more than one option? Each store that I visited gave me a print out of a single tire option; the lowest-cost option. Why not provide me with a range of options so that I can go back, do some research and make my selection?
I think it comes down to salespeople behaving much like the typical customer that they serve. They wish to make the sale with as little time, thought and effort involved to move on to the next person in line. It is an unfortunate situation and one that leaves this type of employee trudging through their job without the accolades or feeling of accomplishment that may come with trying just a little harder. It doesn’t take that much time to know the product and try to match up the customer with what best suits their needs. More importantly, it will keep that customer coming back. I go to my local Advance Auto Parts rather than the more convenient Auto Zone for this exact reason.
Sure, you may say that the hourly employee doesn’t see another dollar if he or she tries harder and secures that customer. True, not in the same way that the proprietor or someone on commission would. However, at a time when unemployment is at a record level, and managers often have to make tough decisions about who to keep and who to let go, good impressions like these are worth more than a raise, they could be worth the job itself. Also, and this may not sit well in the age of instant gratification, but the employee might just learn a thing or two about how to communicate and how to sell effectively. That is a skill that is worth far more than a 5% commission and doesn’t stay with the employer.
I still don’t have new tires because I’m trying to decide what compromises I’m willing to make between wet/dry traction, snow capability and cornering grip. I’m putting together a spreadsheet outlining the brands, models, reviews and prices because I’m going to be stuck with these tires for a couple of years through daily driving, probably some auto cross and, maybe a track day or two.
It was so much easier when I didn’t care about my car and just went with the lowest-cost option.
This DQ Blizzard is Bullshit!
I went to Dairy Queen for lunch yesterday for two reasons.
1. I apparently hate myself.
2. I saw an ad for a $3.99 chicken strip basket while on the elliptical machine at the gym. The irony doesn’t escape me either.
So, on my way home to let the dog out, I stopped by the local DQ for a big basket of yellow and a Blizzard. I really didn’t need the Blizzard, since the 4 piece basket (with gravy for dipping sauce!) more than filled me up and absolved my need for calories for the next 3 days, but I had already ordered it and I like ice cream, so I forced it upon myself like a foreign religion at the end of a sword upon the conquered masses.
Let me just say, first off, that I love blended ice cream treats. I especially love chocolate chip cookie dough versions, because the cookie dough chunks are sweeter than anything God had a right to put on this Earth. Finding a big vein of cookie dough while mining through a serene backdrop of pallid vanilla ice cream is equivalent to winning the lottery! Hacking off a big, amorphous hunk of dough with a little plastic utensil (or metal if you’re all “la-de-da”), but saving part of it for your next spoonful shows advanced planning, delayed gratification as well as a sense of maturity and refinement that may not be for everyone, but certainly has a place among the ice cream elite.
But this Blizzard was so unsatisfying that it literally made me angry.
Why, you ask. How can something that I was certain to love so much, and have in the past, turn on me? Was it the fact that I was already stuffed with grease and gravy? No. Was it that the weather is turning colder and ice cream is better eaten on warm days? No. It was the uniformity of the cookie dough!
Rather than having random chunks of cookie dough, the queen of all that is dairy has sent forth an edict that it makes more sense to have little balls of cookie dough, each the same size, dispersed throughout the treat. Where’s the excitement? Where’s the suspense? Where’s the breaking of a plastic spoon because the cookie dough is too hard to cut?
Oh, I still ate it… all! But that will be my last cookie dough treat from Dairy Queen! Damn your uniform cookie dough! And, without the needless ice cream, what reason do I have to eat your mediocre food, monarch of the milk products? None, I say! Both your chill and your grill are dead to me.
Awesome OC County Fair is Awesome
When I was a kid, we would go to the Clay County 4H Fair, look at a bunch of paintings by 15-year-olds, some dresses stitched together flower dresses and some pigs and chickens in pens. It was good fun when you’re 8. The OC County Fair is not that kind of fair.
First off, the place is huge. Huge! We walked around for about 3 hours and probably only saw about 1/3 of it. And 2/3 of that was composed of food stands offering you fried goods.
How one fries a Klondike bar, only dancing Conan O'Brien knows....
Chocolate covered bacon AND deep fried butter!? One of each, please!
This is truth in advertising. I nearly took out a loan to keep eating here... Also, most bacon-centric booth and therefore, the best.
There’s also plenty of activities for the kids.
Why didn't someone think of doing this with little people earlier?!
We got there early, because we saw on the schedule that there was a tractor pull. They meant this:
This girl was a MONSTER in the tractor pull, by the way.
Who doesn't love a ferris wheel?
But, really, we came here for one thing. RV DEMOLITION DERBY!
Each had a super hero theme and only one would survive. RAWK!
I don’t want to be too redneck here and show my Hoosier roots, but this is why the terrorists hate us. We take home on wheels, paint them with imaginary super hero themes and then, after careful consideration, smash them into each other until perfectly good vehicles cease to run. Then we crush them and turn them into iPods. Oh, and the stands are filled with people who paid the equivalent of a weeks wages in some countries for the privilege of watching the 15 minutes it takes for this to happen.
But, enough politics. Let’s look at some houses running into eachother!
Notice how they still look like RVs.
The field was Mopar heavy with only one Chevy participating. I was rooting for the Batvan which looked the most hacked together.
I do enjoy destruction...
This brings up the confirmation that vehicle prep is minimal. They didn't even take out the stove!
My hopes for the Batvan were quickly smashed when this happened.
AAAAAAAND, there we go. Lots of praise for the Batvan getting tipped.
Once the body falls off the frame, you're done. This one? Almost done.
Obviously, this one is the winner.
Obligatory trophy clown.
A Sweet Spot for Salt
I don’t know whether it is the copious amounts of water I drink in a given day (around 96 oz at work alone), that I exercise before work and don’t drink electrolytes afterward or that I just naturally crave junk food, but there are some days where I NEED potato chips. More specifically, I need salt and a fried potato that is .055mm thick just sounds delicious.
My pusher is Lays and I like their original chips when I need a quick fix. I know, you’re going to go on about how there are better chips, the poetry of kettle cooked chips, the symphony of spices and variety available on the open market, but save it. I just want something that I can lay on my tongue and crush against the roof of my mouth and enjoy.
This sounds easy enough in that they are available everywhere, right? Well, my building on campus has no vending machines. The next building, however, does. So, I have to go downstairs, walk across the production floor, badge myself through the turnstile and then walk the roughly 300 yards to Coffee Plus where the vending machines are. This is where I start to go ballistic.
Just to the left of the TWO bags of Doritos is where my treasure should lie...
I can’t tell you how often I walk this far only to discover an open cavity where my sweet, yellow bundle of fried and salted goodness should be nestled, waiting for me to relieve the burden of my 80 cents in exchange. You will notice that there are two slots filled with Doritos. From a purely business standpoint, if you were in charge of stocking vending machines and you came down every day to find that one item was consistently empty while another item that you have allotted twice the precious real estate to was consistently full, don’t you think you’d start making the switch? Maybe make a little more money? Now look, I have nothing against Doritos. They’re fine and I enjoy them when I’m at parties, bar-b-ques and other areas where the condensation from the beer I’m drinking flushes the Dorito dust off the tips of my fingers. What I don’t like, however, is turning my keyboard and mouse orange. I also don’t care for that much flavor in the morning. I just want something simple and salty, not a blast of cheese and pepper.
So, I leave Coffee Plus and walk on to the next building, up a flight of stairs, through a cubicle gopher village, badge myself through yet another door and there, shining in all its glory is a fully-stocked machine, waiting to take my money.
Here’s the thing, I’m sure if your job is stocking vending machines, you’re either the entrepreneurial owner of the vending machine company who is pulling him or herself up by their bootstraps and making a go of it in this land of opportunity, but more than likely, you knocked up your girlfriend in your junior year and this is your penance. But even you must understand supply and demand! Come on, man! I just want some simple potato chips!
Rental Car Review – French Minivan Edition
As I walked up the street in Lusanne, Switzerland last August and peered into the windows of the line of parked cars, my first thought was, “This doesn’t look like the right way back to the hotel.” It was not, in fact, the right way and I was lost in a town where no one spoke English for 2 hours. In the rain. My second thought, however, was, “Not a single automatic transmission!”
Therefore, it came as quite a surprise that neither of our group’s rental cars sported a manny-tranny despite our having requested to row our own. Nevertheless, the cars that we got were completely devoid of preconceptions. Our whip for the first half of the trip was a Renault Scenic, followed by a Citroen C4 “Picasso”. The only reservation that I had regarding either brand was their reputation for creating bad cars. I gave both a pass since they were French and not really meant to be taken seriously anyway. I’m making an exception for the Renault R5 Turbo, but still, it was based on a Le Car.
Let's get it le'on!
In comparing these two pillars of Gaelic engineering, it is necessary to point out that both are built for the same purpose. It is not style. It is not excitement. No, it is simply to haul around a good number of people efficiently. These are, pretty much, minivans. Sure, you could call them MPVs since there’s no sliding doors, but they both serve the same purpose. Also note that this comparison is not scientific. These vehicles were not driven on the same roads, were barely compared back to back and everything that doesn’t have a number attached to it is completely subjective. Don’t like it? Get your own blog or read some French magazine.
Exterior
The Renault we rented was relatively good looking, though modest as one would expect a minivan to be. The conservative styling was attractive enough, particularly in the black hue slathered on its sheet metal. From the front, it looks about as sporty as one could hope for in something meant as a soccer shuttle. I’m not sure how Citroen got the rights to use the name “Picasso” for any of their lineup, but I am particularly confused as to how an artist’s name can be applied to the C4. Our copy was light purple and can best be described as a cross between an Easter egg and a suppository. The little cutouts in the window helped entertain the eye and pull it away from the otherwise terrible lines and I do like Citroen grilles. Otherwise, adjectives like “dumpy” and “portly” come to mind.
Interior
I wanted that little shifter, but Noooooo...
I had always thought that the Japanese were masters of maximizing interior space, but apparently the French can do it just as well! The Scenic boasted excellent interior trimmings with tasteful accents. Obviously, the hard plastics were plentiful, but at this price point, it is no great surprise. Little touches like pull up shades for the back seats, a customizable dash board and fold down trays made the Renault quite pleasant for occupants and drivers alike. Also handy were the third row folding seats that allowed us to cram 7 adults into the car in relative comfort as we drove up to the Medieval mountainside town of Eze. Also plentiful were little storage bins. The designers apparently looked for every nook and cranny not utilized and stuck a storage bin there. I’m sure that these would be horrible if you were to buy the car 2nd or 3rd hand since the lids would most likely be busted or lost by that time, but for our purposes, they were nice. The main downside was that the A-pillar was difficult to see around when making turns and really became quite a handicap on tight, French mountain roads.
The Citroen sported many similar features as the Renault, but most of them seemed more half-thought-out. For instance, the window shades that pulled up from the bottom of the window on the Renault, pulled out from the side of the Citroen’s window leading to it catching frequently and allowing the sun to shine over the top of the shade and directly into my eyes. There was no third row of seats, but there was plenty of space for storage. The center glove box was refrigerated and held a six pack of Grimbergen, so that was nice. Visibility was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Seriously, the C4 Picasso must have the largest windshield of any car available. The sun shades could literally be pushed back to give you another 8 inches of glass stretching beyond the driver’s head. Strangely, and I don’t know if this is in all Citroens, but the steering wheel hub does not move with the steering wheel. It is a little disconcerting at first, quite frankly. It makes sense, when you think about it, that you would want all of your buttons to remain in place, regardless of when you steer, but I was not in favor. The purpose of each car is made all the more clear by the inclusion of a second rear view mirror that seems to have the expressed purpose of watching the children in the back seat. The “I saw you hitting your sister” feature could be hidden on the Renault, but not the Citroen.
Power
The Renault was smooth, competent and actually quite delightful to drive. The delivery was never jarring and the 1.5L diesel was certainly never overwhelming. The Citroen was the exact opposite of everything in those last two sentences. The official Citroen website describes it as, “the perfect accompaniment to the HDi 160 engine, delivering a smooth yet responsive drive.” In fact, the automatic 6 speed was, quite frankly, the worst transmission I’ve ever driven. Apparently, it is not a proper automatic, but rather a manual transmission with a slipper clutch forced to behave without driver input. The result is that as you press the accelerator with any force, the transmission drops out of gear, takes a smoke break, applies mime makeup and then comes back to swap cogs. It caused a great deal of cursing and was by far the reason most stated that everyone should avoid driving this car. Suspension They’re fine. Both of them. Both are soft and kind of lazy. They stink for taking aggressive roads, but they are minivans. It was a bit unnerving as I approached 190 km/h on the Autobahn in the Renault how light it started to feel, but I wasn’t in a C63, here, so I’m giving it a pass.
Verdict
I could actually see owning the Renault Scenic. Sure, I would need another vehicle, but the utility, the engine and the styling just plain works. Some people might get past the Previa looks of the Citroen, but I can’t see how anyone who has ever driven a car before could saddle up, put it in drive and think that the transmission was anything other than horrific. Maybe the manual version is tolerable, but the automatic would be a deal breaker. In a time when the field of people-movers is so tight, a failure like that is simply unacceptable. Let’s hope that the engineers have the automatic simply as a fall-back for lazy Americans renting cars and that their standard transmission, the one found in their real cars is competent. Maybe I’ll get to drive one on my next trip rather than be burdened with the ease of putting it in D.
Rental Car Review: Mercury Grand Marquis
“Is that your cop car out there?” James asked me as he welcomed me with an outstretched hand.
“Yes it is,” I replied.
Having made my way to the Emerald Isle of the National Rent-a-Car section of the Baltimore/Washington Airport (BWI), I quickly realized that my choices were quite limited. Looking over my options, I saw one of each of the following:
Dodge Caliber – Quite possibly the worst rental car I’ve ever driven. Front Wheel Drive (FWD) with a terrible gearbox, interior and dynamic.
Chevrolet Impala – Quite possibly the worst car sold in the United States relative to its class peers; seriously, a bad car.
Ford Fusion – FWD and competent.
Mazda5 – Great chassis based on the Mazda3, handles well and is a minivan. At least it was black.
Mercury Grand Marquis – A blazing beige rear wheel drive geriatric hauler based on the venerable Panther Platform with a Ford V8 from a dead brand. Gentlemen, we have a winner!
Just look at it there in its fresh Shady Pines Gold paint scheme!
I don’t know why this full-sized, semi-luxury car was in the Emerald Isle and not in the more exclusive VIP section that I don’t have access to. I didn’t care. I knew that I only had so many opportunities to drive one of these relics before they all turn into Chinese-made refrigerators, so I grabbed the keys and hopped in, making my way to the garage exit.
I don’t normally drive full-sized cars. I don’t care for them. They are, by definition, large, soft and this one particularly has the blue-hair set in mind. Having driven a Ford Taurus SHO the week before, I had gotten used to piloting a car with corners beyond my field of vision and stretched beyond reason. While the SHO was modern, athletic and begged for its twin-turbo V6 to be throttled, the Merc was quite content to cruise along, its V8 reluctantly rustling into action when the pedal on the right was dropped.
Now, you might think that a car with a unibody that swayed more than some sea-faring vessels, an engine that struggled to pull the immense weight its steel and seats that implied you should eat more French Fries would be a chore to drive. You would be wrong. It was an absolute blast! Normally, I like to be close to the wheel and pedals for quick inputs, but I found myself leaning back, relaxing and resting my head on the car’s giant headrests. I’m serious, I’ve slept on pillows smaller than these headrests. They assure you that if you have a wife named Ethel who just got a perm, her blue hair is going to be well-supported.
Look at the size of it!
I left each trip in the Merc beaming!
Once one figures out that the engine takes just a second to warm up, you can begin to anticipate the necessary inputs to make the all-season radials scream all the way through a round-a-bout. Not that I would have done such a thing.
The steering wheel has great feel despite the immense lack of steering feel in the car overall. However, once you determine that the steering is a little vague, you can delay the inputs till the last second, mash the throttle and break the rear end loose while executing any turn that is at least 90 degrees. Not that I would have done such a thing.
All the luxury that 1994 could buy.
I would assume that had I done such things, I would have thrown everything that was loose in the car sliding across the two leather bench seats (front and back!!!) including my own backside since the seats offered absolutely no bolstering. The squealing of the tires behind the car along with the crashing of company-owned property inside would likely delight a person to the point of cackling. Not that I would do such a thing.
Look, the Mercury brand is dead. The Panther Platform is dead. As such, the Grand Marquis is dead. The competition has moved on. Luxury has gotten more refined, more agile, more efficient, more… well, more everything. I know why this bastion of assisted living was planted in the aisle that is normally reserved for Chevy HHR’s and Jeep Liberties, it simply doesn’t hold up to what people consider luxurious any longer. However, I greatly enjoyed my time with the Grand Marquis. I wouldn’t buy one, but I am really tempted to go and purchase a used Crown Victoria in full police-spec to practice car control on, and maybe make other people think that I’ve got a cop car parked out front. I know it would bring a smile to my face every time I heard those tires squeal. Not that I would do such a thing.
Royal Appathy
I’ve had about an ass full of three topics lately.
1. The Obama birther debate.
2. NFL Draft speculation
3. The Royal Wedding.
I saw this on MSN.com today and felt a real kindred spirit with this kid.
I'm with ya, kid.
You know that this photo will haunt her for the REST OF HER LIFE.
