Friday, May 25, 2012

Just One Shade of Grey

Today I was driving on a two-lane road, and some guy in a grey Corolla is stuck in my blind spot, trying to pass me, but barely going any faster.  Meanwhile, there's a parked car up ahead, so I'm going to have to pull into the left lane, but this guy is taking an hour to get past me.  So I'm stuck trying to slow down and let him past, hoping the guy behind won't pass me too.  Because if that happens, then I'll be stuck in that cyclical hell of getting passed for going slow but not being able to get into the fast lane because I'm going too slow.

A few minutes later, in heavy traffic, I see a car trying to pull into my lane, and they're not having any luck because it's a solid line of traffic.  Normally I'd let him out, but then I realise: it's a grey Corolla.  So my next reaction is, screw you, learn to drive.  Of course, it quickly occurred to me that there are about 10,000 grey Corollas in town, this is surely not the same one.  So that's just something to think about when you're considering a popular car in a popular colour: not only will you never be able to find it in a crowded parking lot, you'll also get blamed for the crimes of everyone else with the same car.  Instead, buy a purple Mitsubishi and everyone will love you.

But that brings up another question:  What ever happened to car colours?  Insurance penalises you for red, and everyone knows how hard it is to keep black or white clean.  On top of that, car manufacturers are charging a few hundred extra for "metallic" or "pearl" colours, thus ensuring they can charge extra for any non-boring shade.  Whatever money they make from charging for paint probably goes into hiring poets to come up with new names for shades of grey ("platinum graphite," really?)

No comments:

Post a Comment