I’m travelling today with my family in a Toyota Prius V Wagon (yawn) to the Baseball Hall of Fame (yes!).
The Toyota Prius V Wagon was selected by other family members from the family fleet as the vehicle of choice for this trip. If anything, the Prius V Wagon has a spacious rear seat area, much like a baseball dugout on wheels.
The Hall of Fame is sixty-nine miles away which means that if we keep within the speed limit and within the capability of the Prius V Wagon, we should arrive in Cooperstown in a little over three days. (Dugouts on wheels are notoriously slow).
It will be a very comfortable three days as I ride in blissful luxury in the back seat praying to God that nobody sees me. As an aspiring author, I have an image to promote and, well, the Prius V Wagon is not what I had in mind. My nonexistent agent advised me that I should not drive in the Prius V Wagon as real ballplayers don’t drive anything with less than eight cylinders and certainly nothing that gets less than twenty miles per gallon.
My son has convincingly made the case that the Prius V Wagon is not a manly vehicle and has provided me an assortment of names for it that I cannot mention here because of the family nature of this blog. I understand and appreciate his viewpoint as he has somehow managed to select a sporty, yet economical vehicle (a Volkswagen GTI) that allows him to retain his manhood while being fairly environmentally conscious.
My better-half has named the Prius V Wagon “Pearlie” allegedly because of its lustrous white glow. She tells me it is metallic white and sparkles in the sunlight. I must confess my eyes must be going on me as I rarely see the sparkle unless I’m under the influence, and then only after I click my shoes together and believe. That thought leads me to think that if the Prius V Wagon was to have a role in the Wizard of Oz, it would have been as the house that fell on the Wicked Witch of the East.
What I see in the Prius V Wagon is a white car that is the same color car that my mother drives except her Buick is faster, much faster.
Truth be told, I find it particularly disconcerting but fitting that my wife’s late, great, dear aunt was named “Pearlie” too. It’s a fitting because the acceleration of the Prius V Wagon is like that of a woman who has passed on years ago and yet it’s disconcerting too because I can’t get rid of the thought that I’m riding her sweet, dearly departed aunt to Cooperstown.
I was never too interested in physics yet after experiencing the Prius V Wagon, I have a better appreciation for the concepts of inertia and mass. My son and I have tried to overcome the inertia of the vehicle by leaning forward, but this has had little impact other than calling more attention to ourselves, something you don’t want to do when you are a man in the front seat of a Prius V Wagon. But once the Prius V Wagon gets up to speed, my advice is to stand clear. The mass of the Prius V Wagon is like that of a battleship that won’t be dissuaded from its set course. Once the beast gets rolling, it can cut through deer, SUVs and F-5 tornadoes like a hot knife through butter.
The engineers at Toyota are not stupid and they proudly show the current miles per gallon in large numbers on the instrument display in an obvious effort to suggest that the embarrassment of being seen in a Prius V Wagon is somehow worth it. The number is “42” is always displayed as the mpg in a blatant attempt by the Toyota engineers to convince me, a baseball fan, that the vehicle has all the swiftness of Jackie Robinson. I’m on to you guys.
My son and I have come to terms with riding in the Prius V Wagon. We have mounted a fine defensive strategy consisting of self-deprecating humor in the form of a rear window sticker that will make it appearance for the first time today. It reads: “Yes it’s fast; no you can’t drive it.”
When you read my novel, Saving Babe Ruth, you’ll now fully appreciate why the protagonist drives a vehicle that may be white, but is not a Toyota Prius V Wagon.
If you see us on the highway today, please be kind as you inevitably pass us like we were standing still.