Big shots in small cars
Vintage Royko | Chicago Sun-Times | July 3, 1979
Whatever happened to the people, places and issues that columnist Mike Royko went after -- or championed -- during his legendary run? Today and in coming days, we'll check back in with some of Royko's best columns and get you up to speed.
We pulled up to the same red light. He and his female companion were in a small economy car. It looked shiny and new. I was in my four-wheel-drive truck.
I happened to glance at them and saw that they were studying my truck with what appeared to be contempt. Then she looked at me and her lips began forming words.
I rolled my window down and asked: "Did you say something to me?"
"Yes, what kind of mileage does that thing get?" she asked. The way she said "that thing" made me feel as if I was driving something obscene.
"Uh, the mileage is not very good," I answered.
"Well, do you think it's fair for someone to drive a thing like that in these kinds of times, with the fuel crisis and all the other problems, and when people have to make sacrifices?"
"There was no crisis except a snow crisis when I got it," I said, wondering why I was sitting answering questions like a criminal suspect.
"That may be so," she said, "but do you think that you have the right . . . ?" That was as much as I heard. I rolled my window up. She sneered. He leaned over and sneered, too.
When the light changed, I made a right turn, although I wasn't going that way. But I was afraid that they would get at me again at the next light and at the one after that. By the time I got home, I'd be filled with so much guilt that I might slash my own oversized tires.
So it is starting. The people with the fashionably frugal EPA ratings are going to be giving disdainful looks to those of us who are stuck with the disgusting EPA ratings. The status symbols have been reversed.
Only a few short months ago, my four-wheel-drive was a great status symbol. I bought it at the height of the great blizzard in order to get to work. I bulled it through snowdrifts, easily drove up and down snow-clogged side streets while looking down at the little snow-covered lumps that lined the curbs -- small economy cars that couldn't go anywhere.
In snowy January, the owners of the snow-covered lumps looked envious as I went by. Now, in gasless July, all those little lumps are the status symbols. And their owners are filled with self-righteousness.
A friend of mine who drives a big black Cadillac said he is beginning to notice it.
"Just the other day, I got sneered at on the toll road by a family in a VW Rabbit," he said. "There I was, driving along, and they went by me and the wife sneered at me. So did the little kids in the back seat. The kids pointed at me like I was some kind of pervert. They had a tiny dog, and even the dog looked unfriendly.
"They made me feel so ashamed that I slowed down and got behind a truck to sort of hide.
"Then the next time I went to the gas station to fill up, there was a guy at the next pump, and he had a little Japanese car. He watched the gauges to see how many gallons I was getting, and he kept shaking his head. Why should I have to put up with that kind of humiliating treatment from a guy with a Japanese car?
"I never thought I would see the day come in America when a man driving a big black Cadillac would be looked down at by people in a tiny VW. Don't they know how hard I had to work and connive to own it?
"The way I had been taught, people in little cars were supposed to look at people in big expensive cars with admiration and envy. That's what I did when I owned a little car.
"But now that isn't the way it is. Instead of taking their turn and looking envious, they are looking at me with contempt.
"Now I see car commercials where people pull up in front of restaurants in tiny cars and they act like big shots.
"Everything has been turned upside down. After all those years of work, I finally get my Caddy, and now they are making me feel ashamed. Is that right? Is that the American way?"
I didn't know how to answer him. I guess it is the new American way, and we'll just have to live with it, and try to avoid making eye contact with people who have little cars.
But if it will make him feel any better, he might consider this: Before the summer is over all those people on roller skates will probably be sneering at people in small cars.