Anyway, I arrived at Raleigh airport on a Monday in mid-March and picked up my rental car. It was a Honda Accord (0k... Not so bad). By the time I got to my hotel I realized I had picked up a serious smoker, that is, someone had impregnated the upholstery with something serious of the second hand kind. So after checking into my room and parking my luggage I headed back to the airport to make an exchange. "All we have at the moment is a Mazda and a Prius.” The noise of a Mazda doesn't get my 'motor' running so I said, “Sure, I’ll try the Prius.” 
I had to fish the owner’s manual out of the glove compartment to figure out how to start it. Let’s just say the key doesn’t look like a key at all, rather a small garage door opener. It has a tiny little shifter (wimp looking thing) in the dash and you push a button to put it into Park. You also push a button to start it. Then its center dash screen depicts four wheels connected by an engine and a battery and some moving lines, all working together to propel you quietly down the road. I mean quiet in a big way in fact, you are not sure it is running until you depress the accelerator pedal. So sometimes it is on battery only and sometimes the engine kicks in to give you a boost, especially when you are accelerating.
The Prius is a slug to be sure but all in all it is a pretty good, pretty well engineered ride it seems.
Let’s be clear about one thing though, the Prius is butt ugly. It ranks right among such classic “chew your arm off in the morning” road zits such as the Edsel, the early 80’s Buick Centuries and the mid-90s full size Chevys. Nonetheless, I am kind of fond of the visual nightmare. I am scheduled to turn it in Friday morning after 11 days of rental. I’ll miss her, my little “Quasimoto(r).”
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