We - my wife, her dad and I - rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee 4X4 for our recent beach tryst. The vacation went smoothly until five minutes down the road. I hadn't even left my home town when I thought I heard my mother's voice.
"The speed limit is 35 miles per hour," the car said.
The two other occupants in the vehicle found this wildly amusing. I silently cursed Jeep and plotted Gretta's demise. Gretta was the name I assigned the disembodied voice that Jeep put into the car to torture me for the next 200-some miles to the coast.
Somewhere around the 120 mile mark, we ran into a cloud burst. Just as I started to reach for the wipers, they began working. I nearly ran off the road. Stephen King's classic, Christine, ran through my mind.
Turns out the tailgate lifted itself. The high beams come on and off on their own. The vehicle told me how much fuel consumption I was using when I switched to manually change gears, which was considerably lower than when in automatic. Must be a Jeep glitch and not my driving. I'll mention that in my complaint letter to the company.
While I'm not 80, and I don't need a car to parallel park for me (I'm perfectly capable, thank you very much!), I will admit that I did particularly enjoy the seat warmer and cooler-offer.
Curse Jeep for utilizing technology to try to make me drive safely and keep me safe, as well as create a comfortably enjoyable ride! I'm most upset for the technology Jeep didn't employ... Ejector passenger seats. By utilizing THAT technology, I could have slipped it into four wheel drive and really given that SUV a proper test drive!
My four wheeling suggestion made my passengers antsy, so to speak. New technology, Jeep, and I won't be drafting that official letter of complaint.
