I came out of the grocery store the other day, and for the second time that day, I was looking around for my car. Yes, if you too are looking ahead to see where this is going, you’ll have guessed that I went in the wrong direction. It all seemed so simple. I left the car in a parking aisle that was right opposite the exit, so it should have been simple. Easy peasy. No worries. Except that there was a line-up. It looked like a dealership for white cars only. Back home now, the anxiety is receding. I’m calm now. No need to panic. I realize that it’s not me. I don’t need one of those memory enhancers. There are just too many white cars out there.
So, what is the deal with white cars? They’re everywhere. What happened to the rainbow of colors we used to have on the road? Who in the automotive industry thought it was a great idea to paint every other they make car white? I could be like that episode of “Seinfeld”, where they’re lost for hours in the parking garage, trying to find Kramer’s car. Elaine’s goldfish – in a plastic bag – is dying from the heat. If this trend continues, I could be like that in every store parking lot.
For generations, car color didn’t seem to be that important. Henry Ford offered his customers a car “in any color, as long as it’s black.” My father was an “off the lot” man. Whatever color they happened to have outside was fine. Although that always seemed to be green or blue, although there was one brown one once. My first new car back in the 1970’s too was brown. Of course, brown and orange were the colors of the 1970’s, so it wasn’t a bad choice. Again, that’s what they had, and I needed it fairly quickly. It was during my early courtship with Her Ladyship, so when we went to pick it up, she asked about the color, and I told her it was a “sensuous brown”. To this day, she still laughs about that. Hers was a bright red Mustang, very eye-catching. She of course was quite choosy when it came to car color. My new purchase was a basic, stripped-down subcompact, at a time when subcompacts weren’t terribly popular. No radio. Stick shift. Basically engine, wheels, and seats.
Our current vehicle is white by design. I may have related this to my readers before, and if you’ve heard it before, well, just “bear with”. We took our previous car in to have the heater fixed before we set out to a wedding in Pennsylvania. I got a call at school, telling me that there were other things wrong with the car. Knowing her as I do, I asked what she’d come across in the showroom. Her response, “Well, funny you should say that. There is a white one that I really liked. You know I like white.” I didn’t bother asking for details, like how much was it, what it came with, etc., as it was clear the deal had been struck. So, I simply asked, “when are we picking it up?” To which she responded, “I’m glad you agree. Tomorrow afternoon at 3.” To be honest, that is pretty much the way we buy cars. My father the salesman, who could always wrangle a deal, would have been appalled. One of my favorite book series, the Stone Barrington books by author Stuart Woods, has some of the best car-buying scenes in all literature. Of course, with Stone (we’re on a first name basis), he’s typically buying something more high-end, like a Bentley. And miraculously, what he finds acceptable happens to be right in front of him. Metallic green, for example. Great color, and not white. He tends to favor “cognac leather” seats and interior touches. I’ve had enormous difficulty finding “cognac leather” on the lot. Of course, I’m seldom to never in a Bentley showroom either. And I’m also not in the habit of writing a check for a car. We’ve done it once, and I’m reasonably sure it won’t happen again unless a scratch ticket turns up a big winner.
Speaking of fictional cars, there’s a great episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, the one where Rhoda puts a deposit on a new car for Mary. They’re in the showroom, and Mary is eying one on display. It’s a bright yellow, and unbeknownst to Mary, that’s the one that Rhoda bought. So innocent Mary comments, “Don’t you just hate yellow?” You don’t see many yellow cars on the road these days that aren’t cabs. Occasionally a fetching sports car, often with a driver our daughter labels a “mid-life crisis”.
Our friend Lady Peacock just got a new car. This will surprise nobody, but she’d had a dispute with at the dealership, so it ended up with a new car. I’m not sure either, and the details are rather hazy. Anyway, this one is now “fully loaded” to her satisfaction, and is in her preferred color, silver. Lady P does gravitate toward that. Frankly, that surprises me, as the British Royal Family favors dark colors – black, maroon, navy – for the Queen’s fleet. One would have thought that Lady Peacock would adopt that, along with footmen on the running boards and tinted windows to hide her emergency snacks in the back. Our in-laws came over a week or so back to show us their new car too. It’s very nice, and as my dear sister-in-law mentioned, it’s really a “winter”, off white, not that unpleasant bright white that so many have (including us).
My late father-in-law, like my father, would pick from the lot, but his choices varied much more. It was always a Ford or Mercury station wagon, about the size of the USS Missouri. When I first met Herself, there was the candy-apple red one. The last, nicknamed (by me) the Battlestar, was a Mercury Grand Marquis. It floated over the road like a hovercraft, dipping and undulating with the topography. He didn’t drive much in later years, and we’d relate that when in October he arrived in Florida for the winter, he’d fill the car with gas. That would last until about January, when he’d top it up. Then we’d fill it up again in April for the return to New Hampshire. When it was passed on to a family member, at age about 16, it only had about 60,000 miles on the odometer. This car was a cream / tan color, matching all the woodwork in their house, and was one of the last to have the wood-like panels on the side. By then, of course, wood was no longer used, it was more like peel-and-stick wallpaper. “Coffee beige” was a particular favorite of my late mother-in-law.
I might just mention that the car companies, like Crayola, have become very imaginative in naming car colors. My little Toyota, which was a dark gray, was “Phantom Ghost”. When it comes to white, there really isn’t just a plain white anymore. Although Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore still produce a “bright white”, the car people spend more time on exotic color labels. Here’s what I found from an assortment of manufacturers. “Crystal” and “Snow” white, probably for skiers and skaters. I’m assuming that “snow” white comes with your choice of dwarfs in the back. My favorite is “wind chill pearl”. Oysters in a high tide? I would really like to meet the marketing genius that thought up that name. Others include “summit white” and “Oxford white”. Descriptive without divulging much. “Fresh powder” – perfect for those SUV ads plowing through snow drifts. “Pepper white”. I thought pepper was black, but ok. Another classic – “Fuji white”. Evoking the snow caps of distant mountains. Many whites include descriptive terms like “arctic” and “glacial”, conjuring images of a frozen tundra. In the same vein, anything from black to navy blue includes the word “midnight”. Dark reds appeal to wine drinkers – “cabernet” and “merlot”, while the tans become “champagne”. Anything in a dark green has “British Racing” firmly attached to it.
In any event, I may have to return to my standby methods – putting out an orange cone at the back of my car, or using to panic button and wait for the beeping horn and flashing lights. I may startle and/or annoy other shoppers, but it will get me and my shopping cart to the right location. Dreams of a secrecy and a career in espionage will have to wait.
I'm Thinking...No! 