The Prius

I'm exfoliating layers of the Atlanta experience like some sort of self-destructing onion, slowly revealing the Portlandian core inside. But before I get to that core, I first have to go through the brand-name layers, the corporate shells that have to be passed through, or better transcended, before the real identity emerges.

So for now, I'm buying my coffee at Starbucks, my clothes at REI, and my groceries at Whole Foods, and thinking that somehow makes me "Portlandish." I'm staying in Alimony Flats and walking in the Oregon morning rain to work. And this weekend, to top it all off, I rented a Prius. I might as well have been wearing a Dennis Kucinich button for all my former colleagues back in Atlanta are concerned.

The Prius is actually a pretty good car for this town. It's small and agile enough to get around the narrow streets, and the designated parking space at my "corporate condo" is really more a sobriety test than a place to park your car - it's got two concrete columns entirely on my side of the white stripes, and the space is just wide enough for both side-view mirrors to clear, but absolutely no more. The Prius just barely fit, but if I had rented a Jeep Cherokee instead, I would have been swapping paint with the columns. An Escalade wouldn't have even cleared the low ceiling, much less dreamt of slipping into the space.

The fun of driving a Prius is watching the mileage meter. It tops out at 99.9 mpg - can't indicate anything higher - and I frequently pegged the 99.9 mark. But approaching a stop light, the mileage drops down to say, 35.5, then 19, and finally 12, which actually isn't bad for most cars but feels pretty consumptive after 99.9. I took it out onto I-5 and drove from Columbia Blvd. down to Tualatin and back, and successfully got the car up to 70 mph several times, for those who care about such things. But for Portland, where the highway limit is 55 and you'd be lucky to hit 35 on the city streets, it's got all the power you need, and who wants to give the oil companies $100 a week, anyway?

I picked the car up after work Friday and turned it back in this morning on my way to the office. $52, and an eighth of a tank. At those rates, I'll probably do it next weekend, too.