Johnny Boy Marketing

Welcome to Issue No. 9 of Listicles, the feature that presents the Top 10, Top 5, Top 3, Top 100 or Top 1,000,000 of whatever it is you want to know about. Email your Listicle suggestions to johnagliata@gmail.com.

It made sense back in 2015 when I stopped owning SUVs and transitioned to what I call Shitty Little Cars. Back when I was an actual man who drove an actual Man Car, I lived about a mile from work. Gas mileage wasn’t really an issue.

But in 2015, I switched jobs and suddenly had a 30-plus minute commute. Spending my raise on fuel was not what I had in mind when I took the new gig. So I sold the Nissan Xterra I’d dubbed Big Daddy and began my relationship with Shitty Little Cars.

My current Shitty Little Car is a 2017 Nissan Versa. Her name is Woo-Woo, and I hate her. Yes, she gets good gas mileage — about 35 to 40 mpg on average. But she absolutely sucks. Here’s why …

---

No. 5: She’s got one arm rest

Logic would tell you (the brain thing, not the rapper) that if there are two seats in the front of the car, there should be two arm rests. Woo-Woo takes your logic and punches it in the balls.

Woo-Woo has just one arm rest, positioned closer to the driver than the front-seat passenger. Yet nothing is far away in a 2017 Nissan Versa, so it’s entirely natural for that passenger to think the lone arm rest is perhaps theirs. This leads to arm rest fights or awkward touching with front seat passengers whom you don’t know all that well.

I understand there wasn’t a whole lot of room up there for such a needless luxury as a place for both front-seat residents to comfortably rest their arms, and I am wise to the fact that such luxuries cost money I did not spend to take possession of Woo-Woo. Yet I’d much rather a second arm rest than, say, a CD player.

---

No. 4: She’s way too no-frills

The lack of a second front-seat arm rest is just one of the gaping holes in Woo-Woo’s lineup of features. Woo-Woo is like that super-cool hippie chick who doesn’t wear any makeup and eschews any materialism — except Woo-Woo isn’t super-cool, nor is she a good source of dank weed. She doesn’t have anything close to a luxury.

No backup camera. No heated seats. no heated steering wheel. No power seats. Nothing approximating an entertainment/navigating consol.

She does have a CD player and a cigarette lighter jack where you can plug a bluetooth aux cord, but if you want a lighted passenger side mirror in the sun visor, well, you’re shit outta luck.

Woo-Woo is the very definition of no-frills.

---

No. 3: She’s ‘would you please eat a cheeseburger or two’ small

You know those car accidents in which a vehicle slams into an 18-wheeler and slides underneath it in a crumpled mass of metal? That won’t happen to Woo-Woo. Woo-Woo is small enough to slide underneath an 18-wheeler like she was in some Mission Impossible or Fast & Furious scene.

I am 6 feet tall and roughly 190 pounds. Folding myself into and unraveling myself out of Woo-Woo is getting increasingly annoying as I age. I also know that if I get in any sort of accident with any other moving vehicle — mopeds included — I’m likely going to lose and come out the worst.

---

No. 2: Her singing voice is awful

I love music. Love it, love it, love it. Woo-Woo doesn’t sing my music well. Her speakers are tiny and tinny. There is hardly any base. 1980s Walkmen play music better than Woo-Woo does. And I hate her for that.

---

No. 1: She’s actively trying to kill me

My hatred of Woo-Woo is reciprocated in kind. Woo-Woo despises me, so much so that she’s actively trying to kill me.

There are times when I pull out into traffic and Woo-Woo does just fine. Not good, mind you. But good enough.

Then, randomly, there are times when you slam down the accelerator and Woo-Woo looks at her watch and tells you, “Yeah, I’ll do that when I get a chance.” This leads me to think I’m good to pull out somewhat in front of another car, only to check out the rearview mirror and watch as the vehicle that once was far away rapidly approaches my tail and its driver gives me a very justifiable finger of distain.

Acceleration isn’t Woo-Woo’s specialty, and asking her to do so while the air conditioning is on is often a bridge too far. One day, this is going to get my killed. Of course, it’ll kill her too. But I think she’s fine with that.

---