When It Comes to Driving, You Can't be Too Careful

I picked up my new car from the dealership yesterday. As is always the case, the salesman spent some time with me inside the vehicle, explaining its most important safety features. His little talk focused on the Bluetooth telephone system, showing me how to synchronize my cell phone with the car and then call someone just by shouting out his or her name and talk without holding my phone, letting me eat a hamburger or what-have-you at the same time. Then he went over the GPS mapping system in case I can't figure out how to get where I'm going because I'm a complete idiot and did not plan that out ahead of time, and how to pre-set the radio buttons and where to load a CD because God forbid a million times I should ever just drive in silence and pay attention to the road and all the other drivers operating huge machinery that could kill me with one ill-timed sneeze.

Sadly my new car is only a 2014 model and lacks the back-up camera standard in newer models which would allow me to apply my make-up and still see what's behind me. This is a bummer, since now I will have to actually turn my head around when I'm backing up, which seems unfair and old-fashioned. I hope I don't hurt my neck or run over a kid playing in my driveway. The backup camera helps avoid that.

The salesman also showed me the secret spare key which I can keep in my wallet for when I lock my keys in the car putting the groceries in the trunk, something he says happens to so many people that they designed this special key. (That's understandable, what with people getting dumber all the time.) He also carefully went over the rubber vs. carpeted floor mat debate, imploring me not to use both at the same time like so many people do, causing an accident when the gas pedal gets stuck. If you think about it long enough you can see how that could happen.

The last thing he covered in our little tutorial was preparing me for the online survey I would soon receive, asking me to rate his performance. He said giving him all tens was the way to go or else he would get in trouble, and to make sure I understood he sent me home with a printout of the survey with the little boxes at the end of each question all filled in with tens, so I could study it in advance and know exactly what to do when the survey shows up. Those car people think of everything.