%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |   Exploring the future through the present. One day at a time. |
| Several weeks ago, I had to take my car in to get repaired (a friend’s son hit my car). Because my car would be in the shop for three days, I had to rent a car (covered by my friend’s insurance). My car is a 2013 Toyota FJ Cruiser. Manual transmission. Keep that in mind. The rental car we picked was a 2020 Ford Edge. Automatic transmission. After we looked the car over and the customer service rep handed me the dongle (button start, no key needed) and walked away. I sat in the driver’s seat and pressed the start button. The electronics turned on and the seat moved forward. But the engine didn’t start. Huh. I pressed the start button and the seat moved back. So I tried again. The seat moved forward again, but still no engine start. I tried this several times before asking my husband what I was doing wrong. He couldn’t figure it out for a few seconds until he asked, “Is your foot on the brake?” Oh, yeah. That’s a thing with automatic transmissions. Having driven a manual transmission for the last nine years, I had forgotten that little bit of know-how. Sure enough, once I engaged the brake, the car started right up. I wish I could say my confusion ended there. Instead of a gearshift, the car had a knob. I had to study it for a bit to figure out how many times I needed to turn it to get to “drive.” The drive back to work went well. Mostly. Until I realized the steering wheel was a little too high for me. On my car the adjuster was a little stick that I pulled forward or back to adjust. I see this little thing with a “+” sign. So I pushed it. Not a steering wheel adjuster. It was a gear shifter, and by pressing it, the car went from gear 4 to gear 3. I pressed it again thinking it would raise the gear. Nope. I went down to first gear and the poor engine is now screaming at me. So I went the next several blocks with the engine sounding like a moped until it switched gears on its own. I finally saw the other little button with a “-“ on the other side of the steering wheel after I arrived at work. I wish I could say my confusion ended there. The morning I went to a local coffee shop before work. As I left the parking lot I noticed the rear windshield wiper was on. No idea how I turned it on, let alone figure out how to turn the darn thing off. I’m sure the car behind me thought I was an idiot (and he/she wouldn’t have been wrong) as I flipped switches and turned knobs making the wipers go faster, slower, sprayed windshield wiper fluid—more than once—faster again, slower again. I finally gave up and drove the rest of the way to work with that wiper going during a perfectly lovely and sunny day. When I got to work, I went to YouTube and searched for a how-to video on how to work windshield wipers on a 2020 Ford Edge. Turns out it was a tiny switch on the tip of the windshield wiper lever. I’ve always thought of myself as rather tech-savvy, but a two-year old car showed this fifty-plus-year-old woman a far different reality. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
