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I have a new SUV and it has so many bells and whistles that I may have to hire a tutor just to operate it. We purposely did not opt for the most confusing ones like a GPS and back seat dvd player. In fact we didn’t even want or ever use a Moon Roof but we had to take it BECAUSE this particular vehicle only comes with a moon roof. Now who in their right mind would stargaze while driving at night? And who that lives in Texas would use the moon roof in the hot sun, and why would you have air conditioning and open the entire moon roof and let all the AC out? Makes no sense to me at all.

While on the subject of moon roof’s, our daughter who was driving another car of mine years ago that had a moon roof thought it would be fun to haul her friends around town with them sticking up out of the completely opened moon roof and waving and hollering at their friends. She got a ticket for that and it’s called, “Misdemeanor Parading”. Quite a big fine too she found out.

Pat and I are not big on gadgets; we are basic people but the basics have become so big these days that things one may never use come as standard equipment on most vehicles. It is definitely a sign of advancing age when one becomes either unwilling or unable to want to understand the new things in our lives. We are still dealing with the black boxes on some of our TV’s and I never have learned how the convection part of my 3 year old oven works. We had to buy one that has both convection and regular features because it was the only one that fit the ‘hole’ in my cabinetry.

I think I mentioned that we did not add the GPS system to my new SUV because after talking to our kids they assured me if I couldn’t get the hang of the ‘keyless’ ignition how in the world could I work the GPS and while driving to boot! I am really glad we don’t have that feature although if I could learn to work it it’d help me because I’d need a map to get out of a paper sack IF I could read a map.

I do love the little thingamabob in the rear view mirror that tells me in what direction I am heading. On a cloudy day with no sun I can’t tell East from West much less North from South. That doohickey has saved me more than once when coming to a fork in the road and not knowing which to take but having heard that I should go one way or the other but not knowing which way that was.

I also love the gadget on my new vehicle that tells me how many miles I can go before the car is out of gas. There is absolutely no excuse for running out of gas unless you are in the desert with the nearest gas station 50 miles ahead and the ‘gadget’ says 23 miles to empty because I forgot to notice.

Who ever thought we’ve have a car with no keys? This SUV has no key. No kidding and if you think that is a good thing I will explain that it is NOT necessarily a good thing. I was always losing my keys so I began to leave them in my car. I can’t do that now because this keyless car won’t let me. The deal is that there is a ‘device’ that I have to have on my person that tells the car door to unlock and when I punch a place on the dash board it tells the seat to slide up and start the engine. The first time Pat tried it I forgot to mention that you have to have your foot on the brake as you punch the thing on the dashboard. Another thing, to stop the engine you have to punch the place on the dashboard and I am still grabbing for keys. I realize all of this is not rocket science but when you have done certain things a particular way for 60+ years it is hard to get used to.

You don’t have to put the car in park to turn the motor off in this car and that got me into trouble. I went to a baby shower out in the country and drove up, stopped the car with the brake, punched the ignition off and got out. I didn’t hear the warning that the car gave me and went inside. In an hour or so a person arriving late came in and asked if anyone had a new car with paper license plates because that car was beeping.

Much to my surprise when I got out to look, I did hear the beeping, got in and tried to start the car. It wouldn’t start, I remembered I had to put my foot on the brake to do that and then somehow looked at the gear shift and realized it was still in drive position. The car had rolled (I was on a slope) up to some small rocks around a tree in front of my car and stopped. Had it not been for the rocks and the tree it could have rolled into the dry Pedernales River just a few hundred feet away. Again the park position on my previous car was different from this one.

I didn’t know this but my new SUV has a device when hooked up to your cell phone lets you talk without using your hands and operates on voice command. I didn’t have my cell phone activated to use the ‘Bluetooth’ but accidentally the other day when turning the wheel I touched something and a voice came on and said, “Pardon me, that was an unclear command, please repeat.” I nearly went off and into the bar ditch because I didn’t know how I had turned it on, and I had no idea how to turn it off. I need to go sit out in my new SUV with instruction book in hand and try to figure this talking car out. What do you think are the chances??? It’s hard to teach an old dog isn’t it?