i’m not italian!

so, i need to talk about my seattle experience. more specifically, my rental car experience. for my $35.99/day i got a toyota echo sedan. it was some sort of shiny-brownish-greyish colour with four doors and a cd-player. it did not have air conditioning. it did have power steering and power brakes.
like my first rental car experience in manitoba two years ago, i realized that power brakes are scary. as i’m pulling out of the budget rent-a-car lot, i put my foot on the brakes as i would in my own 13 year old vehicle and came to a screeching, jerking halt. oops. power brakes! then, as i’m driving through downtown vancouver at 9am on a sunday i looked down at the spedometer (once i could find it: who the hell at toyota thought it was a good idea to put it over on the CENTRE of the dash instead of in front of the driver?) and noticed i was doing almost 80kph in a 50 zone. the whisper quiet car combined with sitting higher off the ground totally eliminated my ability to judge how fast i was driving. i spent most of my driving time breaking every speed limit i passed by a very healthy margin.
the combination of my not being able to feel how fast i was driving and the REALLY FUCKING TOUCHY power brakes nearly got me arrested and/or killed before i’d even left the city of vancouver. i was through downtown and exiting off the oak street bridge (which turns into the road which takes you all the way to america. handy!) when i saw cops in the meridian stopping people for speeding. shit! i knew i was speeding, so when mr. police officer stepped out into the left lane and pointed, i hit the breaks. the car jerked and squealed. the cop yelled “NOT YOU! KEEP MOVING!” as he flagged down the guy zooming up behind me in the other lane. thankfully, there was no one immediately behind me in my lane or i would have gotten creamed. but, for all that is good in the world, why, oh why, was there a speed trap at NINE O’CLOCK on a sunday morning? if you can explain that to me, i’ll give you a cookie.
it was a pretty great day out. the sun was shining, there was a nice breeze and i don’t think i remember a single cloud in the sky. so the hot sun got to beat down on me in the car with no air conditioning for three hours. yay! i kept thinking, especially as i sat in the lineup at the border for half an hour, “gee, i wish i’d stopped to pick up some beverages… and a towel.” poor kevin. i was pretty damp and frizzy by the time i picked him up at his hotel. the thing is, i thought all rental cars had a/c. c’mon! then again, my last rental was a free upgrade because they didn’t have any economy cars available, so i guess i got spoiled with the a/c and cruise control (oh, man, what i would have given for cruise control on this trip).
after a few frightening too-hard brakings on I-5, i finally started to get accustomed to the car. i was still speeding, but so was everyone else, so i didn’t worry too much about it. i did wonder what all those washingtonians thought of the brownish-greyish toyota echo with canadian plates and a big BUDGET sticker on the bumper thought as i zoomed past them, though. probably something along the lines of “fucking tourist”.
i really, really liked not being embarrassed to have passengers in the vehicle with me. i liked the cd player a LOT (i’d totally get one for my car, but it’s so not worth it now). i didn’t much like all the blinky nag lights on the dash cajoling me when i took my seatbelt off to reach for something at the stoplight. oh, you know that dumb commercial where the echo is parked in a “large vehicles only” parking spot (yeah, like they have those) and the tow-truck driver gets in, looks around and you hear the voice-over say something dorky like “it’s only small on the outside“? it’s totally true. the echo is freaking HUGE inside. and tall. i couldn’t get over how much headroom there was. if i had fifteen grand in the bank, i’d totally go buy one. but not the sedan. it totally weirded me out to know that there was a bit of car sticking out past the rear window that i could not see. no thanks. it’s all hatchbacks for me.
huh. when did this turn into a car review? ohwell. i’m going to go buy a burrito for lunch now.