Hybrid.
Hybrid, hybrid, hybrid.
It's all you ever hear anymore. Hybrid this. Hybrid that. Hybrid wore a funny hat.
Driving a hybrid sucks. A real hybrid, like a Prius, or a Civic. Please don't lump those fake hybrids into this rant. And by fake hybrids, I mean those leather-laden Lexuses and big fat Escalades. They're about as green as Al Gore and his private aircraft.
No, I mean real hybrids. The ones that pack the entertainment value of a Post-it. The ones that suck the car down to its basic intent: transportation. A to B. Nothing more. Nothing. No cool. No smiles. No looking at it in your driveway because it's fun to just look at it in your driveway.
Screw that. The car can and should be so much more. You should want it to be more. You should want your car. You should want to be in your car. Desire. That's the word I'm looking for. Does anybody really desire a Prius? You remember desire, don't you? How about covet? Yearn for? Crave? Of course not. It's the soy milk of the car world. You drink it because some doctor convinced you you're lactose-intolerant and now 6 months later you've convinced yourself that it tastes good. But it doesn't. It's a mind game. It still tastes like chalk and you know it. Put the Lactaid down, Eujean. Have a Coke. Life's too short.
I know, I know, they're good on gas and gas is expensive. Hey, jughead, anything worth having is expensive. A good car. A good house. A hot wife. PlayStation. HDTV. Table service. You pay for what you get in this world and if you want to live a good life, it costs money.
But the people who have them love 'em. Heck, the Toyota Prius is so popular, Toyota is upping production as fast as it can. Just last week the automaker announced it will produce 70 percent more Prius hybrids next year. And in 2010 Prius production will move to a new production facility in Mississippi.
Too bad popularity is not a measure of good. Never has been. Millions of people watch Grey's Anatomy. Millions more smoke menthol. Last year a ridiculous number of people paid to see Celine Dion in concert. No thanks.
What about the environment? What about it? The best thing you can do for the environment is drive the car you have.
You heard me. The fact is, it takes thousands of factories to build a car. Think about it. The tires, the steel, the rubber, the aluminum, the plastics, the seats; every individual component of a car is made somewhere else before it is trucked to the assembly plant where it's built into a car. In the case of the Toyota Prius, that plant is in Tsutsumi, Japan.
And if that car is a hybrid it takes even more factories and even more trucks because the car is now that much more complex. There's an electric motor, batteries, etc.
Then of course, they ship them to America on a big smelly ship. Talk about a gas guzzler.
But if we all just continued to drive the car we have, then we can shut down all those dirty factories that build all those new cars. And if we do that, we can stop all the trucks and the ships that transport all those new cars to those new car dealers. And then all those new car dealers can turn off their lights and the employees can stop driving their cars to work. And so on. And so on. And so on.
Sure we'll all be in bottomless economic depression, but if you want to be green, then let's be freakin' green.
Bottom line, get over it. Get over this hybrid fixation. Drive the car you desire. Whether it's new or old, drive it and enjoy it. Enjoy driving. Pay for the gas. It's worth it. Cut something else from your life if you have to. It may not be politically correct, but it's the right thing to do. -- The Mechanic
