Counting Chick Cars

I wonder if maybe the car you drive is more indicative of your personality than you'd think. I know that girls, at least, are snobs about what kind of car a man drives; dismissing out of hand a guy in a "chick car" as though he were wearing something offensive like an open necked silk shirt and gold chains. It's as though his effeminate car implies some lack of character or manliness, like a VW New Beetle convertible is a big gay flag that he flies.

Neither, though, are most of the girls I know overly attracted to guys in big monster trucks with their jacked up tires and TV head rests and spotlessly clean naked lady mud flaps. He, it would seem has too much testosterone. Or an absence of maturity. Or a very small penis. None of those things being desirable, obviously.

It would seem, that like most things, there should be some middle ground. Something like a Dodge Charger or Jeep Cherokee of a man that says, "I'm not broke, but not frivolous. I am solid and dependable. I like antique shopping and I'll hold your purse while you try on bras at the mall and then I'll insist that I saw on CNN that they've resized all the clothing lines a size smaller due to too thin Nicole Richie types rather than see you cry because you've gained ten pounds and have to wear a bigger size then last year. I will remember your birthday."

But then, I wonder, how do you explain the motorcycle factor? Is it our desperate clutching at youth that makes us eye the tattooed, beer bellied, bald guy as he goes rumbling past on his Harley while we sit in the other lane making a grocery list on the back of the water bill envelope?

What of a woman's car? Does the same hold true in reverse? Do men see a girl in a Mustang and see someone who'll go down on them in a movie on the second date while people three rows forward eat popcorn and laugh at Adam Sandler? Do they see a girl in an Escalade and mentally calculate the amount of alimony her Scottsdale ex-husband pays her? Do they see a girl in a beater hatchback and sense that any little scrap of affection will be enough for her?

I wonder then about how the girls in "non-chick" cars appear. Is she a ball breaker in her Power Stroke Diesel Ford 250? Does she drink too much if she drives a '68 Hemi 'Cuda? Is she a lesbian astride her Honda Shadow Custom?

I think maybe the "what kind of car do you drive" question should be seen more as a "what sign are you" than "so, what's your FICO?" kind of question. More of a personality clue that tells you if you're compatible on some mostly indefinable level than a materialistic inquiry.

Because I wonder, could a truck girl and a Cabriole guy ever find love? Or would the cost of the strap-on, the purple fur-lined handcuffs and H20 lube cause them to go bankrupt?