Not Another Anti-SUV Essay

I had to drive my car around Seattle yesterday to run a few errands. My downtown neighborhood is fairly self-contained but once in a great while I need to go to the mega-hardware store or the hiking/climbing/biking shop in Ballard. On my way home I drove through Freemont. I was planning to stop for coffee and check out Twice Told Tales, a used bookshop in that neighborhood. I was quickly overcome by the stress of trying to park my car so I gave up and headed home.

It wasn’t like I needed another reason to think that cars suck. Besides the hassle of parking, I can’t even count how many times during my short outing my field of vision was blocked by an SUV. Even when they are parked SUV’s are a menace to society.

In our “bigger is always better” culture of consumerism, the Humvee, or Hummer, is the biggest. The Hummer is a ridiculously large military vehicle now available in soccer mom flavors. Even its name is absurd--hummer is another slang term for blow job. Without altering the meaning, I suggest we change the name to the more abusive term for oral sex. Let’s call this vehicle the Skullfuck. The logo could be some frat rat dude wearing a ball cap on his head backwards forcing the planet earth to give him oral sex. Special permission will be necessary as this is already the logo of the Bush administration.

Some asswipe in my neighborhood actually owns a Hummer/Skullfuck. How anyone could drive this preposterously large truck down a city street and keep a straight face is way beyond my comprehension. I would be thoroughly embarrassed to be seen in one of these escapees from a monster truck rally. When I see one parked at a traffic light I half-expect to see a door open and a troop of clowns come rushing out. Hummers aren’t for off-road travel, they are clown cars.

Given the current make-up of our Congress, we won’t be able to pass legislation to close the loophole that allows these cargo tankers to infest our city streets. What we as citizens can do is to heap so much vitriol and sarcasm upon SUV’s that people will no longer think that it is cool to buy them.

The folks in marketing sell SUV’s as the vehicle for you, the lone individualist. If I have learned one thing about our society it is that we are all terrified to stand out from the crowd. People buy SUV’s not because they want to stand out, but because they want to be just like everyone else. If you want to buy into a cool image brought to you by the propagandists, then buy a Mini Cooper. If you are going to be a lemming, then at least you can leap off the cliff in a car that doesn't block my view of the precipice.