Back to work tonight for the first time since the collision. I’ll be taking the slightly longer but much safer route from now on. The stretch of road where it happened has always made me nervous. I’m grateful that it didn’t take a death for me to learn to listen to that voice.

Do yourself a favor; if you hear that little voice, pay attention to it.

I love the Prius.

It was out on a test drive when we got to the dealership, so we waited along with another couple. As it turned out, we ended up taking the car out together. All five of us: us, plus the other couple, plus the salesman (who answered every question and then some) who never even had to take the “key” out of his coat pocket. It’s part of a proximity detection system. No more scary fumbling in dark parking lots. How cool is that?

The car was still zippy on a long incline. Zippy for a 4-banger, mind you, but surprisingly more impressive than the Civic, which only had 4 people in it at the time. No distant siren sounds, either. It had loads of storage space, designed in some very clever ways. Seating was a little crowded for 3 adults in the back, but there was plenty of leg room. Four standard cup holders (the Civic only had 2 with an option for a third). The dashboard was a little weird but in a space-age, “I could get used to this” sort of way. I really liked having the speedometer right under the windshield where I could easily keep an eye on it without sacrificing my attention to the road. Best of all, I still felt safe in it.

Now the bad news.

Everyone else loves the Prius too. The other couple put in a deposit as soon as we got back from the test drive, knowing they would be waiting at least four months to get it. One of the salesmen told me they only made 38,000 for the U.S. for 2004. So, it looks like I’m going to have to get in line. For the first time ever, I feel it will be worth it.

So, I’m going to spend next week getting all my ducks in a row so that I’ll be able to live without a car until I can get into a Prius.

The Civic Hybrid didn’t impress me. It definitely felt safe in that heavy car way, but that was about it. Freeway escape power with a full car was acceptable for a 4-banger, but not as good as I was expecting. The electric assist makes a sound like a distant siren. It would be easily covered by a low playing radio, but it was a little creepy nonetheless. The whole car is chintzy on storage space. The salesman made an oddly half-hearted attempt to garner my business but couldn’t answer most of our questions (I brought along a couple of friends to fill up the back seats). He kept asking me which color I liked best. Honestly? None of them. The hybrid battery is in the back of the trunk, which means the back seats don’t fold down. The current cost of replacing said battery is $3,000. Ouch. The best feature about it, aside from the safety rating, is that manual transmission is available. I could live with it, but am by no means in love with it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to test drive a Prius. The dealership we went to, with it’s greasy parking-lot circling salesmen, said they didn’t have a single one on the property to even look at and were back-ordered 3-8 months. They claimed there wasn’t one available anywhere in town to test drive. He lied. Are you surprised? Me neither. He may have been correct as far as purchase availability goes though, which would be unfortunate. AAA has a program that might help me in that department, but we’ll see how I feel about it after I take it for a spin today.