Can't you see we're trying to tell you no!

[austin_dern]

As we got to Honda we naturally wondered whether that vehicle purchase enhancement agent would still be with them, and ... the evidence must be said to be ambiguous. The receptionist insists that he is, although we never saw him because he was at work with some other task. It's quite possible my parents are decimating the central New Jersey car dealership industry, and we wondered if this might affect available deals. After a short while ... he still wasn't free, so my father and I wandered around looking at all three models of cars they had available. We assume that Honda has a fairly robust product line, but it just wasn't in evidence, even though they had a showroom stuffed full of cars and virtually no empty space in the parking lots (customer or demonstratable models). They just had many copies of a few vehicles.

Experimentation in the showroom indicated that while Honda has cars which may well suit many people's needs, they don't suit our family's, and particularly they don't suit mine. We couldn't find a car in which I would actually get in, rather than strap it on. It's a shame as some of them are cute, but I've really got to insist that while driving my knees not be put into an awkward position such as lodged deep within the dashboard.

But the specific car my parents wanted to try wasn't demonstrated on the showroom, and they found eventually a substitute car experience facilitation engineer who would chaperone our ride in the 2007 Honda Something. I found riding in the passenger's side front to be at least as comfortable as economy-class airplane flights, with the note that I haven't had an economy-class flight since 2001, because I instantly earned enough Frequent Flier miles to be pushed at least into economy-plus (which allows customers to bring along legs) or higher. My father, in back, had a less pleasant ride, so we tried out the 2008 Something, which the purchasing event coordinating facilitator promised had a couple more inches in spots where it might just make a difference. It has more inches, but not enough of them, so we went to buy me a suit instead.

Trivia: The train bringing mail to Saint Joseph, Missouri, for delivery on the first Pony Express ride to San Francisco was itself two and a half hours late. (The fault was a courier missing the connection in Detroit; despite a special train of just one engine and one car given highest priority to carry the mail, the time could not be fully made up.) Source: The Saga of the Pony Express, Joseph J Di Certo.

Currently Reading: Venus Inc, C M Kornbluth, Fred Pohl.

Comments

[orv.livejournal.com]

Honda's thing is mostly small, entry level cars. Their bigger, more luxurious stuff gets sold under the Acura name. It's similar to the relationship between Toyota and Lexus.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That might be the problem. We just came away concluding that we were not a Honda family.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I always feel bad when it's my turn to drive the car pool in my Civic. There's usually a fair bit of consternation associated with how far back the squished person in the front can put his/her seat before excessively compacting the squished person in the back. I find it perfectly comfortable, but I am a small bunny.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, we bigger people get used to it. It's something to stop us buying a specific car, but the occasional and not excessively long ride is fine.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

In the various somethings, did you get around to trying the Element? I'd expect that to be a modestly roomy model, especially for rear seating.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, and I know this doesn't sound credible, they didn't have one to show. I can't explain it either.

My father was enthusiastic about the Element, in the abstract, because he'd understood that you could clean it out just using a garden hose. This might have made my mother implacably hostile to it. I'm guessing, there.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

That is one mentioned feature. One I suppose very few people would actually use, mind, as it requires pre-cleaning enough to get everything you wouldn't want soaked with water away. And then, your car's clean enough and why bother?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That, and, my father seems to haul a couple of sacks of Quikrete somewhere just about every week, and you really don't want to get quick-setting concrete dust wet in a place where you don't want concrete lumps.