I’m not entirely sure why, but often when I drive, especially when I’m driving the Pao, I have this recurring waking dream about being abducted by some manner of alien tractor beam, car and all, and then placed in some vast cargo hold of an alien spacecraft to be taken who knows where. Maybe there’s other cars in the hold, maybe some car-scaled vehicles from places other than Earth, which this particular race of aliens is clearly collecting for some sort of space menagerie/car/vehicle show. And when I think about this, I look around at the interior of my funny little car and wonder just what these aliens may learn from it?
You see, I’ve often felt that if you had to give one human artifact from our normal, daily lives to an alien culture to teach them as much as possible about humanity, I think a car would be an excellent choice. One car can give aliens a sense of what human bodies are structured like and what sorts of dexterities they have, they have examples of written language all over the place, a huge variety of materials, and those materials are markedly different from the inside and outside, giving an idea of the sorts of environments we prefer to surround ourselves in.
The HVAC system gives a sense of the sorts of environmental parameters we like, the radio/infotainment/audio system can tell our range of hearing and hint at our appreciation of musical arts, lights and colors suggest the visual spectrum we can see, the style and design of the car says something about the aesthetic concepts we hold, and so on.
But that’s cars in general. What about your own car?
Like, for my Pao, they’re not really going to get a sense of what the state-of-the-art technology that humans are capable of, because not only is my car from 1990, but even then it wasn’t exactly cutting-edge. Unless I leave my phone in there, maybe. The most advanced thing that stays in the car is probably the cigarette lighter-plug Bluetooth adapter and the USB-powered magnetic wireless charging doohickey I have on the dash to hold/charge my phone.
I do have a good number of random papers and stuff folded up in door pockets which may prove interesting, and some weird little random things on the under-dash parcel shelf, like a keychain of a VW Beetle and perhaps a Lego minifig. Also, there’s lots of stickers in Japanese on the car from its former life in Japan, so there’s multiple language systems that could be learned.
It’s a sort of edge case, automotively, though, and I think it’d give any aliens a pretty skewed view of what cars are generally like on Earth. Also, I try to keep it clean, so I tend not to have a lot of, say, food trash in the car, but in this particular case, if I had a bunch of Taco Bell wrappers and boxes in there, I bet the alien scientists would love that.
But what about you? If some flying saucer comes and tractor beams your car away, what will they think of humanity as a result? Be honest, now. Unflinchingly so, please.
Do People In Your City Drive Fast Or Slow?
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They will probably think we are dirty and eat too many fries.
So much STUFF in my daily, an ’04 Volvo XC90. I call it my daily even though I only drive it a couple times a week usually, but that’s more often than I drive my other car, a ’94 Miata w/hardtop.
There’s stuff in the Miata, including some stuff in the center console/armrest storage thingy that’s there from the prior owner, from whom I bought the car about 5 years ago. However, there’s LOTS AND LOTS of stuff in the Volvo, which I’ve also had for about 5 years.
I just emptied it of a load of firewood, but the moving blankets and cardboard that were under the firewood are still there (I pretty much keep both the second and third row of seats permanently folded down for cargo and dogs).
There’s also:
A gallon of water and (maybe) a few petrified granola bars
A decent-sized ABC fire extinguisher
A small first aid kit (out of an old Lexus I think)
Road flares (never used one in my life and I hope I never have to… I should probably just toss ’em since they make me nervous ’cause they looks like sticks of dynamite)
Lots of shopping bags (most grocery stores haven’t given away bags in LA for years)
A change of clothes (I don’t find myself sleeping over other people’s homes much anymore, but I used to, and it’s a hard habit to break) and a small towel
A lithium ion battery jump box (the battery in the Volvo is 8-9 years old I think)
A window break/belt cut tool, along w/misc. other tools (but of course I can never find a G-damn screwdriver when I need one)
A code reader device so I can see what’s causing the CEL this time
A big bag of bungees, ratchet straps, a roll of twine, bits of foam, and other stuff for strapping things to the roof
A dog-eared but perfectly usable 1994 Thomas Guide (street map) for LA
A tattered straw cowboy hat that I wear when volunteering at the local outdoor food bank on Wednesday mornings so I don’t burn like the former New Yorker I am
Extra moving blankets (I have a big collection of them)
A reflective safety vest (that I originally bought for motorcycling, which I don’t do now)
A big dog bed, and there’s a dog bowl in there too
Some window cleaner and paper towels
A few books from Little Free Libraries I’ve passed for extended waits (like in the vet’s parking lot)
A scratched-up pair of cheater glasses so I can read those books if necessary
A sleeping bag and (usually) some sort of pillow too
…and a whole bunch of other crap, all of which probably/maybe costs me 1 whole MPG due to dragging around the extra lbs.
I do like having all this junk and don’t begrudge the extra lbs/impact on MPG. I like that the car is big enough for me and the dog to comfortably sleep in and ever since the other month and the LA fires, where I had to hurriedly pack files and hard drives and dog food into it, I’m glad to have the space. 18″ tires for it are pretty pricey though.
What they (the aliens) WON’T find in my Volvo (or Miata) is any sort of smartphone or cellphone, a navigation device, or a music-storage device.
My OCD instructs me to add that I forgot to include the contents of the front door pockets:
A flashlight (my best one for some reason, even though I rarely drive at night these days)
Hand sanitizer
A small binoculars (from the few times I’ve done a bit of freelance surveillance by which I mean actual surveillance and not recreational stalking)
A little bottle of pepper spray that’s probably so old now that Tabasco would be more effective
Another little spray bottle, this one supposedly to ‘calm dogs’ but to me it just smells like cedar and has no appreciable effect on canines
Assuming they bother to check for my music device, they’d learn a whole bunch about music. Major rock bias, but there’s jazz, classical, blues and more in there. They probably would come to think dogs have human servants/chauffeurs.
Not my car, but the one I drive regularly, as in two hours: 1) Powershift sucks. 2) People seem to hate the joy of driving a good-handling car. 3) People like bold colors (never take a part for the whole). 4) Humans cart around insane amounts of sheets and towels (until they google what an AirBnB host is). 5) Humans also cart around food and drinks for a couple days. 6) Humans have a very colorful language while driving around other humans.
They will think we are all dirty, filthy beasts that have even messier offspring and small pet creatures that leave muddy tracks all over everything.
Our vehicles are prevented from flying off into space due to their high density (with their tractor beam unexpectedly struggling to bring in such a small car).A large number of bags made from both cloth and petroleum-derived materials contained in the trunk indicate that humans are continually prepared to stop and gather objects from the landscape.Humans have extremely short attention spans and thus require constant notices from the car regarding proximity of other objects within the immediate vicinity of the car. These notices come in the form of annoying pulsating sounds.Since the aliens have been listening to our radio broadcasts for decades, they are surprised to note that the only forms of music listened to while moving are obscure rock, alt-country, and blues. There are no commercials on car radio systems as the presets show only satellite and community radio stations. By far, the most popular artist for human mobile listening is David Bromberg who is otherwise virtually unknown. The bloviating agitators who dominate the AM frequencies are not selected for, perhaps in order to prevent those in the car from becoming so unhinged that they unnecessarily attack other vehicles (see next point).A hatch in the roof of the car allows a passenger to stand up through the roof while the car is in motion, perhaps in order to fire weapons at other vehicles. This is a controversial theory as no such weapon is found in the car. Supporters of the theory point to the constant, universal human fondness for eliminating each other.
Common, you guys are starting extremely early for april fools posts.. The last 10 front page post are ridiculous.. no way these can be real articles.. anyway, the van goes under the blade tomorrow, we’re adding new performance trans mounts, Just dropped off the damaged wheels to the powder coaters and with the help of eastwood company we think we’ve found that hyper silver color. next we’re 2 weeks in and waiting on the powder coated coil springs. Plus we invited statefarm to our track tour as they have a lifted NV200..
When the human race has ended and all evidence of our existence has subducted into the magma of the earth, the only traces of our species will be the five rovers left on the moon and a Tesla Roadster orbiting the sun. I think aliens will understand us.
That some, perhaps many of us were Cheap Bastards.
“It’s hard to believe the humans packed this much ‘meh’ in one transportation device”
“We must study them. Prepare the probes.”
How hard white great Dane hair from a dog you briefly took care of 6 months ago is to remove from a black cloth seat. It’s woven in there or something.
My dog’s short hairs pierce through the seatbacks into the cloth, the way a pin does.
It’s the worst – 15-minute ride turns into 1 hr. of vacuuming if I forget to put the backseat cover in. My lifetime dogs are all mostly black and shorthaired so it’s not as noticeable, but this white dog/horse wrecked the joint.
Try a Dyson Animal. I was going to sent this to DT since he’s got an i3 and may need to transport a load of ducks and dogs someday:
“I have great first-hand experience!
Got my brand new i3 less than a week ago and yesterday I needed to go pick up some ducks. 20 loud, stinky, muddy, poopy ducks. Folded back seats down, ensured the ‘i function’ cover was well-placed to cover as much as possible, and then put 4 cardboard boxes in the back, each containing 5 ducks. Journey home was uneventful. When I was unloading the 4th box, my dog picked up on me having something potentially tasty to play with so jumped up, knocking the box from my hand. One of the ducks popped out of the box and went flapping into the car with muddy, ****** feet as horror and grimace rinsed across my face.
So I mentioned the dog. She’s a big dog with a double-coat made for surviving arctic cold–an Alaskan Malamute. Been transporting her all week in the back (seats up) with the ‘i function’ cover. She is currently molting–I could knit a sweater with how much fur I brush out of her every evening.
All of that info to set the scene of how I spent an hour cleaning my brand new, less-than-400 miles on the clock, i3 from mud, duck ****, and dog fur. Like all things, the right tools make a job easier. We have an animal model Dyson–the animal brush attachment sucks up fur from any material without issue. We’ve been using it for a year in the house so already knew its value–same in the car, perfectly vacuuming off the dog hair from all the various surfaces/materials. I mention the Dyson first because it came with a foam cleaner. I tested a small spot to make sure it wouldn’t discolor the fabric. It didn’t, and 30 minutes later I was vacuuming up the dried foam right along with the dried mud and duck crap. For the non-fabric surfaces, I just used a generic ‘all surface’ cleaner–spray and wipe. The “hardest” part, which really was not that hard at all, is the slightly raised hex pattern of the plastic. It required a few more circular movements to get the mud/crap off as opposed to a perfectly smooth surface but again it wasn’t hard at all.
Everything is back to brand new and was not difficult to clean. I don’t intend on mucky ducks flapping around the car again, though the weekly vacuuming of the dog hair will be a quick 5 minute job.”
https://www.mybmwi3.com/threads/cloth-interior-how-hard-to-clean.1545/
My white dog left hair in leather-covered seats; you wipe them away and they reappear. Now you explain that to me.
To this day I find tan hair on black vinyl seats in one of my cars from a dog that passed away in 2016.
Define sweetbitterness.
Bless dogs.
They’d see that I like little hatchbacks, hats (I have been follically challenged since 27) and Italian Plumbing Bros.
They would ask why small humans seem to cache scraps of food in and around their seats and door pockets. Are they preparing for coming lean times? Is it a human instinct their parental units have successfully managed to control but the tiny humans are still learning that? Why do they only stash crumbs and single crackers? And why aren’t the scraps of food stored in containers of some sort instead of just strewn about the cabin and pressed into the seat crevices? Is it ceremonial?
Reminds me of one of the weirdest and best Regular Car Reviews episodes.
“You humans. It’s amazing how much velocity you can extract from your ancestors.”
Despite all the electronic gizmos, wires, and computer chips, we’re still a primitive species when they discover the knob with an image of a stick and a wavy line that creates fire.
They will learn that the overcomplicated startup procedure on their spacecraft isn’t so bad after all.
The young males of the species, replicating the vain and insecure chest beating of their primate ancestors, arm their personal transport vessels with noise making apparatus such as the “sub-woofer” and the “fart-can” in a pitiful attempt to convey their masculinity to the other members of the pack through intimidating noise rituals.
And when they drive their coal-rolling pickup past the local ice cream spot, all of the girls present will look at each other and say, “small penis”.
True story, by the way.
That we are obsessively clean and that we must worship our transport.
Ketchup expands when it freezes and the resulting explosion welds shards of packet to the carpet fibers while a car is parked under cover but unheated through the entirety of two of the worst noreasters in as many years while its owner visited family in Florida by means of other transportation.
Thanks a lot Torch. /s
Your stupid dream reminded me of one of my favorite dreams.
About me and Agent Scully being abducted at the same time, and being encouraged to make low budget porn movies for both the Aliens, and the God damned Cigarette smoking man.
In my dream everything is great. Great times. Especially the part where Scully suggested to the Aliens that they also abduct some of her former sorority sisters to join the fun. And they agree.
Until some fucker knocks on the spaceship door and wants to know if anyone ordered a pizza?
Not something I care to be a part of. I mean the idea of pizza in space is excellent, but the god damned delivery guy looks like Elon the Interstellar Turd…
Thanks a lot.
You demented bastard…
Which made me ask: why aren’t there more hot babes delivering pizza?
You have my attention. Please tell us more.
I always wake up in a cold sweat when Stormy Daniels appears.
Can’t win them all I guess…YMMV
I think they’d learn that we can shed a wheeled exoskeleton in exchange for a slower form of bipedal mobility.