What's in a Name
I'm here to tell you that Sheila, Mark's car of 20 years, has died [more precisely, has been donated to public radio, but the fact remains that she no longer runs]. Mark was starting his drive home from St. Louis when Sheila just...stopped. He started her up again, and she reasserted her stationary status. He did a manual override to get her off the road [ie put her in neutral and rolled off to the side down the hill], and then called a tow. And thus began the search for the ideal car . [Unfortunately, I don't think cars, or people, have achieved perfection on earth, but the pressure to find the closest-to-perfect still exists]. It needed to have safety features like a backup camera, curtain airbags, and superb crash test results. I stipulated that it needed to have air vents to the rear seat, as I had noticed that Nathan can get warm sitting back there in his carseat. We preferred a hybrid, for environmental and gas-price reasons. The car also needed room for his strolle...