Tag: cars

Oops.

You ever approach your car in a parking lot and think, boy, I did a terrible job parking, and look at your car and think, man, it’s a lot dirtier than I realized, and then try to get into your car and discover —

Yeah. It’s not your car.

Happened to me yesterday. Meanwhile, friends told a Palo Alto tale involving two Priuses and a parking garage. One of the cars was their vehicle. They got in it, started it up, and began backing out.

The wife said, “Something’s wrong.” She looked around. “I don’t think this is our car.”

More looking around was conducted. They noticed a tissue box on the back seat.

Definitely not their car.

They pulled back into their spot, parked and exited. But, what the hell? Where was their car? They’d parked right here.

Actually, they’d parked two spots over. A large truck blocked their car from their sight during their approach. Some color and year, just a little different.

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The Porsche Dream

One of last night’s dream seemed structured like a feature film.

It began with me becoming aware of a contest. I can’t tell you the details of the contest. They were vague and dreamy. But I entered the contest and was selected as one of the winners.

That thrilled me. As a prize, I was going to drive a Porsche 911 Cabrio. It wasn’t the current model, but a car that was part of a collector’s garage. I was happy and excited.

But the dream took a twist. Other people needed help. It wasn’t inconsequential help, but help they needed to survive. Although it meant that I would miss out on my prize, I did what I needed to do to help others. Yes, on the one hand, I regretted that I would miss out on my prize. On the other hand, come on, it’s a silly prize, compared to the larger picture of helping others who are fighting to survive. There wasn’t a question; it’s what needed to be done.

Smiling and happy, they thanked me after I helped them (I literally gave a number of people helping hands to climb out of muddy, swollen rivers.) When it was all over, I waved good-bye to them, satisfied with the result.

Taking another turn in the dream, though, a friend, Kevin, showed up. He said, “I called the guy and told him what you did and why you didn’t get your prize. He admired you, so he came up with another prize for you.” I was presented with the keys to an Arctic blue Porsche 911 Cabrio.

Oh, it was gorgeous. Although it was a cold day, with melting snow all over the place, it was sunny, and the car’s top was down. Kevin and I got into the car. I started it up and drove it carefully through puddles of slush and over patches of snow and ice.

Kevin said, “Come on. What are you doing? My grandma drives faster than this. Open it up.”

But I’d had a plan. I was getting to a place where I could turn and go up a hill onto a mountain road. Right as Kevin finished making his plaintive statements, I downshifted and mashed the throttle. As he was slammed back in his seat, he laughed and said, “Whoa, shit. This is more like it.”

Laughing, with the car’s engine in full song, I accelerated up the mountain road.

That was the dream’s ending.

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The School Zone Button

I was thinking about another problem that’s not really a problem, and was surprised that some car company hasn’t already solved it.

Driving through the school zone, I wondered why my car didn’t have a “School Zone Button.” My car, a Mazda CX-5, is a pretty smart car. Its lights and wipers go on whenever the need is detected.

It’s locks are always tricking us, evidence of how smarter it is than us. The door locks are key-less, and depends on you having a fob on your person. You press a button on the outside door handle to unlock it. The car gives you a few friendly beeps and lets you in. But if the button has already been pushed on one side, and someone pushes on the button on the other side, say my wife, the car goes into a frenzy of beeping warning that kind of reminds me of the robot on “Lost in Space” saying, “Danger, Will Robinson!” Walking it is much easier; you just walk away. The car has options to change all of these settings, but they’re exhausting to navigate.

The car has a built in navigation system. This system will show you the speed limit for the road you’re on, and tell you when you’re speeding. You figure that if the car already knows the speed for the road, and knows that I’m in a school zone, I should be able to press a button that will keep the car at the school zone speed.

Yeah, I know, how hard is it to keep a car at that speed? Well, from the number of people who ignore it, it’s pretty damn hard. The school zones seem to go a million miles around the schools in Ashland, starting at 7 AM and going to 5 PM. I rarely see a child in any of them.

The School Zone Button. It’s an idea whose time has come.

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Dream Fulfillment

When I was young, I imagined great careers for myself, glamorous and exciting vocations, like rock star or racing driver. Didn’t come close to either of those, but fulfilled one of them in last night’s dream.

Yes, I was a racing driver, an unknown in Formula 1. Being unknown bothered me not. I was just happy to be there. I was with another rookie driver. Short, he was from somewhere in South America. This was the season’s second race. He’d won the first race. I wasn’t in the first race, but the media was mobbing us because we were rookies, especially him, winning that first race, and his F1 debut.

The time for the current race arrived. There wasn’t any qualifying for reasons I don’t know, and I was starting from the back. (I think this was just a dream contrivance as a metaphor for how I view myself and my life sometimes.)

Then, just like that, I was surging through the field, was at the front and gone. My wife was in the pits, watching, and was mega-impressed. (Yes, I was given that view.)

“Where’s the other guy?” I wondered about my fellow rookie while the race was still going on. That question permitted me to view a screen in my car that showed the car’s relative positions, a setting that you can sometimes select in video racing games.

There was my car, in light blue, number one, and well ahead of the pack. The other rookie, in red, was fifth from last. I was exuberant for myself, and sympathetic for him.

I won, of course, amazing all. My wife’s excitement seemed to equal my own. If only life could be more like my dreams….

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A NASCAR Dream

It was peculiar.

My Dad, wife, and other family members – none of them ever seen, but heard in the wings of the dream stage – and I were watching a NASCAR race. It was one of the big banked tracks, like Charlotte, Michigan, or Daytona. I lean toward the last as the site. The cars were in roaring packs. It was the race’s mid-stage. Fans know this means the drivers were racing for position, but were mostly finessing the situation and vehicle to make a run at the end. Stock are mostly high-speed endurance races with a final ten-lap shoot-out, especially with the modern tendencies for the cars to wreck on the last, desperate laps. That stops the race and frequently leads to a green-white-checker situation.

I’d driven in with family in a white Chrysler Sebring convertible, with a beige leather interior. The car was parked right there.

Watching the race wasn’t the same as in reality. While watching on a huge screen, I (and everyone else) could virtually walk among the cars as they raced around the track. NASCAR encouraged this technology as a way for fans to get closer. Further, you could design a new paint scheme for the cars as they raced. The drivers and team could then review your scheme while the race was on, and adopt it for the car, again, while the race was on.

That’s what I was doing during the race. ‘My’ driver was a female (and not Danica Patrick). She’d was leading for most of the race, but there was a wreck. She was eliminated, and the race was red-flagged for track clean-up.

My family wanted to leave. The race wasn’t going on, and the one we cheered was no longer in it; why stay? I was working on that paint scheme, though, and didn’t want to quit. I finally surrendered to their heckling. Then Dad wanted me to move the Sebring up. Although we weren’t in a garage, there was a closed garage door. Using a remote control, I moved the car forward, but resisted getting it too close to the garage door. Dad insisted, move it further forward. Irritated, I did, stopping the car with the nose right against the garage door. I then complained to him about it.

That’s all there was. I found interesting symbolism to move after I awoke: a white car, my father as an authority figure, and a female driver, in the lead. All of those seemed like elements of myself. After mulling it over for a while, I took it to mean exciting times were coming (the race) during which I would be pushed to the limit (the car against the garage door) but that it would be fine (my father), and that while I had control, I wouldn’t be in full control.

As if I’m ever in full control, right?

 

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Driving

Have you ever been behind a car with a driver who inexplicably speeds up and slows down, and sometimes drift onto the shoulder or over the line, and wonder, what’s going on with them?

Yeah, me, neither.

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Triangle Cars in A Dream

Two dreams remain with me from last night. In one, people were buying cars shaped like triangles. In the other, I was a new commander take over my position.

In the car dream, I was with my cousin, Steve. I haven’t seen him in decades. I was thinking about buying a new car. Steve decided he was going to buy one, two. Another fellow was also buying a car.

Steve ended up buying a new Pontiac Trans Am. Black, or charcoal gray, it was shaped like a equilateral triangle. If it was a door stop, it would have been too stout. I didn’t know about triangular cars. This was news to me. There weren’t any wheels. Not as tall as me, I couldn’t see how people could fit into it, nor how it would work.

While Steve bought his car, another person bought an Audi triangular car. The two cars looked remarkably similar. A salesman approached, asking if I wanted to buy a car with wheels. “Why would I do that, when these were available?” I asked back.

I wanted to drive my cousin’s car, to see what it was like. After a little debate, he agreed. We opened doors, got inside, and we took off. Man, I’m telling you, triangular cars are amazing. Driving it was effortless. They accelerate like a rocket but hold the road like a Formula One racer, but they do not actually ride on the road, but a few feet above the surface. We were a little snug inside but the technology was amazing. The experience left me grinning with pleasure.

In the other dream, I was a new commander. It was my first day. I was in a huge briefing room, waiting for others to arrive. My dark blue uniform was crisp and creased. I wore shiny black and red shoes and had decided to roll up my pants cuff to form a larger cuff and show some ankle.

Proud, ready, and confident, I stood at ease awaiting the others’ arrival. The Commander-in-Chief had arrived to oversee the transition of command and was attending my first briefing. When the double doors opened, I stood at attention and saluted him, and then awaited as the others filed in. They did, taking their seats, chatting about me, impressed by my deportment. After the sat, I did as well. I was a little bothered about my cuffs at that point, ruing the decision to roll them up. We sat and waited.

Nothing happened.

After some period of waiting, I grew aware of another set of doors to my right. I opened them and found a conference room full of seated women. As soon as they saw me, one began giving a report on their finances. Another one interrupted, arguing about allocating expenses to another cost center. I don’t remember any of those details.

Neither dream ended with clear understanding. I liked the elements of triangular cars in the first dream and how effortless and pleasurable driving them were, and the black and red shoes in the second, and being in command. Those cars were amazing, even though I have no idea how we managed to fit inside them. Driving them was cool as hell, like a dream come true.

They were confusing dreams, but strike me as optimistic and uplifting. What about you? Have any intriguing dreams recently?

 

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Cynical Me

“Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster is a maniac.”

George Carlin had it right. I stew behind other drivers, awaiting the day when they will be in a self-driving car, leaving me to self-righteously and serenely pilot my car around the roads the proper way.

I have categories for “them,” the other drivers that irritate me. Probably at the top of my list are bizarro drivers, employing a secret logic for their decisions. “School zone with a speed limit of twenty? I’ll go thirty-three. Residential area with a speed limit of twenty-five? I’ll go thirty-three. Country road where the speed limit increases to thirty-five? I better slow down to twenty-eight.”

WTF? I canna fathom their thinking. I’ve written it before and will do so again, their brains are wired backwards. Further proof of this is how they treat yield and stop signs with the exact opposite behavior directed by the sign, and the law behind the sign. It’s a yield sign, so they’ll stop. It’s a stop sign, so they’ll roll through. When “their lane” is ending, they don’t make an effort to signal, move over, merge and integrate, oh, no, that would be too logical. They just keep going straight, hanging onto their lane until others are forced to give way and let them in.

Arrrrrrr!

Let’s not even consider what the hell happens in traffic circles and parking lots. Both of them are like driving in the Thunder Dome. Add rain to the mix….

What is it with rain that it seems to make so many drivers frantic and more erratic? It’s as though the rain causes them to think, “Which out, it’s raining,” and their backward wired brains trigger the opposite of safe behavior. “It’s raining, let’s speed, and not use turn signals, and drive down the road straddling the dividing lines, because we want to be safe.”

Madness, I tell you, frigging madness. Add in some distraction, and OMG. The distraction need not be much. Construction in progress and police cars with flashing lights going off to one side, I can understand, but why are you slowing down to look at people walking dogs? Have you never seen people and dogs before? Are you looking for missing people or missing dogs? Are you not familiar with creatures walking?

This bizarro behavior afflicts cyclists, too. More than half of the cyclists that I encounter around our little town are on the sidewalks. All those great bike lines and bike paths? They seem to treat them like they’re lava zones that will kill them if they enter.

No, I don’t understand. But then, everyone else is an idiot or a maniac. I’m the only sane nut on the roads.

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Dreams of Saving Babies

Oddly, I enjoyed two variations of the same dream last night.

Each began with me driving a car. In the first, a man, who I think was Latino, began shouting and waving. Looking back, I saw a baby stroller with a child in it racing down the highway toward me. Changing speed and course, I dropped back until the stroller caught up with me, matched speed, and snagged the stroller handle through the window. After bringing us both to a stop, I put my hazard lights on and began waving at the oncoming traffic in warning while I awaited the parents(s).

In the next part of the dream, I saved a child again. This time, I was walking with friends through a plaza, when a child fell out of a window. Seeing what was happening, I managed to catch the child and return her unharmed to her mother. I then remarked to my friends, “That’s the second child I saved today.” They tried convincing me it was a dream as I told them, “No, it was real.”

Then, as the second feature on this dream night, I was walking through a department store. I was wearing brown leather sandals, but somehow misplaced them. Most of the rest of the dream was about looking for the sandals, explaining to others that I’d lost them and what they looked like, and looking at other sandals to see if they might be mine.

I then returned to saving babies. Again, I was driving. A child in an unattended stroller rolled toward traffic. Seeing it, I maneuvered my car to protect the stroller from other cars and then herd it to a stop. Then, I was walking with friends through a plaza when I saw a child about to plummet over the edge of walkway. Racing over, I caught her before she fell. After returning the child to her grateful mother, I told my friends, “That’s the fourth child I’ve saved today.” As they protested that I’d dreamed it, I realized it was true; I’d twice dreamed I’d saved two children.

And then, I awoke.

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