What is the plural of Prius?  Prii?  I think Prii get a bad rap.  Jeremy Clarkson has given them all manner of abuse since their arrival, but I’ve spent some time behind the wheel of a Prius, and if you know what you’re doing, those things can rise to most occasions.  But it has never been my Prius that I was driving.  Because it’s highly unlikely I would ever own a Prius.  And I think that’s where the bad rap comes from: it’s not that the Prius is an inferior or particularly slow car.  It’s that the person who is most likely to intentionally buy a Prius is likely to not be inclined to routinely and egregiously violate speed laws.  They are more likely to drive in the fast lane simply because it means the fewest lane changes, not giving the slightest thought to the concept of “fast lane.”  But honestly, the number of Prii that I find myself cursing in the fast lane are far fewer than non-Prii cars, so I do think a lot of the grief Prii get is largely undeserved.

But you know who deserves absolutely every single bit of grief and wrath and contempt and hatred and vitriol and yelling and middle fingers and Molotov cocktails they get?  Goddamn minivans, and I’m assuming their drivers.  I don’t know.  I’ve never driven a minivan.  But holy shit…I don’t know whose fault it is, but these things are just a menace and should probably be taken off the road.  Or at least banished to Oregon.  Most of the time I have the misfortune to have to deal with one, they are lumbering obliviously down whatever roadway they’ve chosen to cause traffic in just then.  Every once in a while, though, I’ll see a minivan come tearing ass up the slow lane, the driver apparently having had (in addition to a big breakfast of bacon and meth) enough of these slow-asses in the fast lane, so they get in the slow lane and just punch it.  But they fuck this up too, and they end up having to slam on their brakes and end up stuck behind a truck or merging traffic.  Why is this?  Are these vehicles just difficult to drive?  Is there sometime about them that renders the driver moronic?  Is there some engine or design flaw that keeps them from driving in an acceptable way?  Regular vans don’t have these issues.  SUVs don’t have these issues,

Okay, enough of this bilge.  I need to get to work on the book.  I’ll try to get us back on track with the discussion we started a week or two ago, about some of the issues you’ve been mentioning in your mail.

N.P.: “Hypothetical” – Emigrate, Marilyn Manson