When I left New Orleans for Greeneville, Tennessee, I rented a car instead of flying. It was cheaper and I thought the drive would be kinda nice. I requested a fuel-efficient economy sedan. I went to the airport to pick it up. The woman behind the counter handed me a set of keys and a pamphlet and told me my car was waiting at “B13.” (This is a recurring alphanumeric combination for me, by the way. It is my Southwest boarding number tomorrow . . . and has been like a million times.)

Anyway: I thanked her and walked to the parking garage. I found B13. I looked at the car parked there. I looked at the tag on my keys, thinking there had been some mistake. No, the space and the tag matched up. Imagine the horror I felt when I realized this was the hideous perversion of design and engineering that I was to be imprisoned in for 10 hours:

Not only is this not a fuel-efficient economy sedan, it’s also the absolute dumbest looking car since the Nissan Cube and the PT Cruiser. What the hell kind of person buys this thing? It’s not a car, it’s not an SUV . . . it’s a big stupid clownish crapwagon that I reckoned appealed to no one except maybe the blind. It is called a Honda Juke for God’s sake. JUKE. I quickly realized that the reason they had given it to me was because I was taking it on a way-way trip, and they wanted to get this thing the hell away from them.

Notice how you can’t even really tell that the back doors open. Also notice how the headlights rise above the actual hood. Yeah, so when you’re driving at night, you can see the light as it shines into your eyes instead of on the road in front of you! There is no comfortable way to drive it. Every chair / steering wheel position is wrong. There is no amount of leaning back or forward that makes sense. It feels like driving a fucking cereal box. Every time I had to stop for gas I was so embarrassed. Even my cat, who sat in the front seat and who has no idea what a car is, much less what an ugly one looks like, seemed embarrassed that we were kicking around in that shitmobile.

Here is what I wanted to say about this car: I figured this was a car that the public would loathe. Like, there’s no way anyone would go to a dealership and pick this damn thing out. Honestly I wouldn’t even take one for free. But the terrifying reality is that EVERY SINGLE TIME I HAVE DRIVEN AROUND I have seen one of these at a stop light or in a parking lot. Sometimes I have seen multiple Honda Jukes together, like a small tribe of lepers!!!

I’m telling you, look around, man. They’re out there. This thing is selling big time, and we as a species inch ever closer to that final midnight called TOTAL ANNIHILATION.