Auto Show

photo by Ballard Avenue

We loves us some auto show around here. There's nothing better than kicking a bunch of tires, slamming a bunch of doors, and smelling all those free hydrocarbons floating around the interior of all those shiny new cars. So we went to the auto show where you can do all that without the loving attention of a salesperson.

The cars are grouped by maker and it's interesting to see who's hot and who's not. This year hybrids are hot. Trucks are not. High-fiving white guys from downtown accounting firms all gather around the BMWs. 20-something Asian kids go straight for the Hondas and Acuras. Computer geeky types were hanging around the Volvos and Saabs. There were always lots of people in the Buick area but it was in the center of the hall. They were all going somewhere else.

Volkswagen was hot. Mercury, believe it or not, was hot. Mitsubishi and Kia were not. There was a lonely Kia Optima sedan over in the far corner of the hall. It's a nice but plain little sedan. It seemed so sad and lonely that we went over, sat in it and beeped the horn. The horn didn't work. The battery cable must have been removed. But we tried.