Adventures in the Outback.

[I wrote this originally using voice recognition, so if I missed something weird while editing, that's what happened.]

Before I proceed, I should state that my normal routine when I get home from work this to have coffee, fruit, and toast. That's all good, but if I don't eat something substantial within a couple of hours, I become hypoglycemic. The symptoms are weakness, sweating, and a muddled mental state.

Yesterday morning I went to the bank to get a cashiers check, and then came home and got things together for the car dealer. I was just about to leave the house when I felt a little woozy. Fortunately, I had a solution handy–Clif bars. I bought them for hypoglycemia emergencies. I ate one and, just to be safe, ate another. Then I headed off to New Jersey.

My GPS, the Navigatrix, took me on a strange route. There were many small towns, suburban lanes, and twists and turns. Finally, I got to the street the dealership was on. It was one of those streets from hell. There was a similar one in front of my father's apartment in Florida, and I hated it. They're diabolical. Six lanes, three in each direction, a speed limit of 55 mi./h, and all kinds of businesses on each side of the street. That's one more thing not to like about New Jersey. I followed the Navigatrix until she said, “you have arrived at your destination.” But no Subaru dealership was in sight. I continued down the road and saw many dealerships, but still no Subaru. Finally I turned off the highway/street and called the dealership. When I described where I was, she said I was about 10 min. away. She told me what to do and I headed back to the street. But I couldn't find it. I pulled in a driveway and set the Navigatrix to find the dealership again. That got me back to the main road. I followed the directions I'd received on the phone and not the GPS's directions, and I finally got to the dealership. It turns out they had moved six blocks and not updated all their documentation.

I parked my Prius and bid it a sad farewell. I wondered if I'd regret trading that car. Inside I did all the usual baloney and finally was ready to take the Outback. The salesman came outside with me to show me a few of the cars features. It was an impressive list. I'm still discovering things, but here are a few: satellite radio; a 10 way power driver seat; heated seats; heated side mirrors; inside and outside thermometer; a digital compass in the rearview mirror; separate temperature setpoints for the driver's and passenger's sides; automatic headlights; a warning light for low tire pressure; a warning light for low windshield washer fluid; a “find car” button on the key fob, in case you lose your car in a parking lot; an electronic parking brake; a feature that keeps you from rolling backwards on hills; a readout of the number of miles before you run out of gas, which is based on your current miles per gallon.

Finally I was ready to leave. I put the Navigatrix on the windshield. I was starting to feel hypoglycemic again, and I wanted to get home as quickly as possible. I started the car.

As you all know, there are some things you have to get used to in an unfamiliar vehicle. One of those is the accelerator pedal. In the Prius the accelerator is electric, as are all the controls. The pedal in the Outback is standard. I pressed it a little and nothing happened. Quickly figuring things out, I pressed harder on the pedal. That's how it happened that the first few feet I drove in that car were a wheelie in front of the dealership, with several salesmen watching idly from inside. I smiled at them to show I had control, and headed down a dead-end driveway. It was nice to finally pull out of there. I saw my Prius as I was leaving. I thumbed my nose at it and said, "PFFFFFFFT!"

After a while the Navigatrix told me to get off on some ramp, which I did. But apparently I had headed south instead of north, a minor error. No problem, I waited for the GPS to recalculate. It said it was recalculating, but nothing happened. By the time it finished recalculating I'd made several turns, and it had to recalculate all over again. That kept happening. Finally I saw a sign that led me to freeway going straight to the Tappan Zee bridge. Perfect!

I was going down the highway with the Navigatrix told me to get off. Then I was on another freeway going who knows where, when the Navigatrix started recalculating again. What a mess, and the hypoglycemia was getting worse. That's when I figured out the GPS was trying to avoid tolls, so it had a lot of calculations to make. After a couple of freeway on/off cycles, I made it back to the correct freeway without the help of the GPS. I paid the toll for the bridge, and managed to get off at the right exit. I didn't remember where would take me and I was getting a lot weaker. Fortunately, I was very close to the apartment. It took three tries, but I finally backed into our garage. I went upstairs and got something to eat. I didn't go outside again for the rest of the day.

Naturally, I was kind of looking forward to driving to work. The thing I'm having the most trouble getting used to now is the analog speedometer, but that will pass. I parked outside the lab and pulled the door handle–nothing happened. That was a big surprise. The door was unlocked, but I couldn't open it. I tried the passenger door and it was the same. I thought about climbing over the seat to try one of the rear doors, but then realized that they would probably be locked if the front ones were locked. I started the car again and pressed the button that releases all the locks. It didn't help. I lowered the window and pulled the outside door handle, but that didn't do anything, either. Unfortunately, the owners manual was in the apartment. This was not a good problem to be having at 3:45 AM. I knew it wouldn't look good if I was still locked inside my car when other people started arriving at the lab.

I thought about crawling out the window, but there were three reasons I didn't want to do that. 1–I was worried about scratching the car. 2–I would've had to leave the window open, which I certainly didn't want to do. 3–The idea of crawling out the window was inglorious, to say the least. Finally I pushed the unlock button on the key fob, and that worked.

I'm going to read the owner's manual from cover to cover next week.