DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour 

Regular readers of the questionable material I write will note that I often use my late-Uncle Barney as a substitute for situations I don’t want to admit about myself, like how he has large thighs and his gas pedal leg often rubs against a center console, or his stomach is too near the steering wheel even though the seat is in its full-back position on the track.

The reason Uncle Barney is so popular with me is that I have an image to maintain. Few of my readers have ever seen me beyond the picture in this column in which I am actually trying to look intelligent. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m going to describe how my own girth has interfered with my comfort in otherwise terrific vehicles.

If anybody ever calls me out on it I’ll blame my editor for changing my copy. That said, here’s my gripe this week:

As a rule I get new press vehicles delivered to my house weekly. My responsibility is to drive them, evaluate them and report on them to readers of my various outlets. This week I have had a terrific midsize crossover vehicle. I’d rather not say specifically what it is because the problem I’m going to discuss isn’t exclusively theirs.

By now you’ve probably guessed that I’m referring to map pockets with built-in beverage holders for outside vessels like big bottles of water or pop or even Slurpees. In other words, containers that are too big to fit in center console cupholders. Manufacturers think they’re so clever by finding a spot in the door panel to house these things. Just like prohibition sounded good in the design studio, in practice it had its faults.

For instance, when people have thighs and lower legs the size of Dumbo the Elephant they tend to sit in their seats with their legs parted for comfort. All well and good. However…the molding annoyingly rubs the left side of my shin like the person sitting next to me in coach on a 757-300.

After a few miles and several minutes, whichever comes first, I can feel the calcium layers of my shinbone being pared like its being whittled. The same must hold true for the passenger side as well. Pity the poor air-breathing octopus who’s subjected to the same punishment. (Hey…I watch kids shows with my grandkids, okay? ANYTHING is possible on those shows. An example: how can SpongeBob SquarePants’ house burn down…WHEN IT’S LOCATED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN?!!!) 

There’s got to be a better way of designing spaces for larger bottles than to have them placed so intrusively. I know what you’re thinking; “Al, why don’t you and your kind just exercise and lose weight and this won’t be a problem for you?” The answer to that is quite simple: “They want ice water in Hell but they aren’t going get that, either.”

So let’s take this argument off the table right now! The other possibility is to stop bringing large liquid containers aboard. Either buy smaller bottles of water, pop, whathaveyou, or do without them. First of all, reaching down to pluck a one-liter bottle out of the door panel is kind of awkward. When I think of how many thousands of times daily this process results in spilled liquids all over someone’s floorboard I get an itchy-twitchy feeling and to quote a verse from one of the Dave Clark Five’s songs, “I’m glad all over.”

Another question I have is why does somebody need a one-liter bottle to drink in a vehicle, anyway? Just thinking like any bladder worth its contents would, if this person is on an extended drive and drinking a big bottle of water…is he going to hold it in for a couple of hundred miles? (I’d say “pee” but if you couldn’t figure out what I was referring to then you haven’t graduated from Family Circus in the comic section.) Certainly not!

People like that need help, both physically and mentally. They should start their own therapy by pacing themselves and seeing what their threshold is. BUT…whatever they gravitate to as a standard should fit into a console cupholder…BECAUSE THE BEVERAGE CONTAINER IN THE DOOR POCKETS WILL BE GONE!!!

I realize that my over-the-top suggestion will make it more difficult for rheumatologists and orthopedic doctors to put their children into Ivy League schools but they’ll just have to be satisfied with treating professional golfers and skateboarders. There’s more of us than there are them.

I doubt whether any automotive designer or engineer is going to read this column, drop his can of Red Bull and run back to the studio to design a different apparatus to hold larger bottles. But if enough people think of why they have lower leg problems this piece might make them reflect on the cause. One final word of advice, Mr. Evian-drinking designer; professional football players and members of the WWE all have big thighs and will come looking for you at some point.

I know where all of you spend your days…and I can be bought for a medium Dairy Queen chocolate cone.