In concert, playing at the grey Chrysler 300?

I currently rent a lot of cars. Once a month, for the last couple of years. And, yes, it is true: one of the perks of driving rentals is you get to test out a variety of vehicles. With the added bonus of not having pressure from a salesman. You find out what you like and what you don't like. For example, I never thought I cared about car color, but discovered there is a dark blue that I really love. Also, I love crossovers. Never would have even considered one. And I'm not a fan of push start cars (too easy for me to forget to take the fob with me when exiting the car).

You also learn all the weird design things auto makers do to try to be novel. The Dodge Charger was one of the worst. For some reason they decided to put the switch to open the gas tank at the bottom of the driver side door. Took me forever to find it. (Why not look in the manual, you ask? The manual was on a CD. Fail. Total fail.) I've already mentioned the Prius. This weekend, the new odd feature was in a Chrysler 300, which had a dial gear shift, instead of a 'lever'.

It's less confusing than the Joystick option and I admit, it does free up some space. But, I think I'm just old fashioned. I like the good old stick.
















I also got a chuckle at the clock in the car. I think what was so funny about it is, you have this posh car, with all this new tech--touch screen for radio and media, digital screen for fuel information, etc. (as well as a digital clock), and then in the middle of the dashboard, you have this lovely analog clock. Or, at least analog looking clock. The car had California plates, and the digital clock was wrong. The 'analog' one was correct, though. Anyway, it just seemed a little ironic, is all.

However, the features of the car aren't really what I was going to write about. I actually wanted to talk about singing. What, you ask, does singing have to do with cars? Well, I find that the car is my favorite place to sing.

Maybe it's because I live in an apartment, so I can't in good conscience blast the radio and sing at the top of my lungs.* (I could in bad conscience. But I try to keep bad conscience out of the picture). Maybe it's because the acoustics are so great. Or maybe it's the combined exhilaration of music and driving. I don't know. All I know is, I really like listening to music and singing while I drive.

I'm not really a good singer. I can stay in key and stuff, but that's about it. So that may be another reason I like singing in the car. No one else can hear me, I'm my own audience, and I can get the volume to a point where I almost drown myself out. (I may be prematurely deaf, however).

Anyway, it is just a really joyful, pleasant experience to sing and drive and lose myself in that little world.

*It occurred to me yesterday that I've greatly underestimated this particular perk of home ownership.