This is an official first draft. I’ll be editing it down, at least one more time when I get around to it.
Enjoy.
I had to get a brake job done 4 days earlier than I planned for so I rented a car.
They told me it would along the lines of a Nissan Versa or so. Boy was I surprised
when it was not only nothing like that, but it was this itty bitty little 2024 Mitsubishi
Mirage.
1 You have to actually use the key in the ignition, no fob. Locks and unlocks but
that’s it. No panic button, no trunk button. (and no trunk! see #5) That is so 1990s!
People, this is a 2024 and you have to use an old fashioned key. Every single time I got in the car
my key was already in my pocket and I had my foot on the brake and was about to start the car but
there was no button to push. Wiggling around, I fish my keys out and start the car.
2 The side mirrors aren’t automatic. You will open the window on the rainiest
day and stick your whole arm out to adjust it, just like olden times.
3 The door handles only have one gripping point, and it’s bottom up so you almost risk carpal tunnel bending your wrist around trying to open the door.
4 There is no auto setting for your headlights so I just know I’m NOT going to remember to turn off my lights each time.
5 No trunk. this thing is little, and short and low to the ground. There is sort of a trunk, but it really won’t fit anything special.
Sitting in it, you’ve got such a tiny bit of metal and glass around you, it makes you feel like you’re George Jetson in a bubble car
flying through space.
6 No cubby in between the driver and passenger seat. We’ve all become accustomed to that, right? Well there isn’t one.
7 Two days now I’ve been trying to figure out where and how to add a radio station to the presets.
Judging by how many are on the same station I think other people had this problem the entire rental as well.
Very counterintuitive people, where did you hide it? That’s mean.
8 The clock is set 3 hours ahead of Connecticut time and I cannot for the life of me find somewhere to start updating it.
I’m going to guess I’m not the only one who can’t figure this out on my own.
9 The User manual is horrid. It reads like a common core middle school English language arts “textbook” teacher edition.
Half anime graphic novel, half text journey. Looks foreign to almost all of us!!! How can you find things in this??
Plus it’s in 2-3 parts so after finding nothing about the clock in the table of contents, index OR thumbing through
the whole thing and speed reading, I looked again and saw there is a whole separate “audio console” manual. (Still
can’t find even a second reference to clock in there!! So counterintuitive)
10 Yes I returned this rental without resetting the clock to the right time, or adding any radio stations or anything.
The one upside to this car was it’s so frickin’ good on gas it only cost me a whopping 6 dollars to return it more full than when I picked it up.
Read an ancient essay “My Little Laptop” here: [X]
