Taken for a ride
Idrove around Barcelona in the new BMW Series 3 with a pregnant wife and a fractured right wrist (a gift from skateboarding). So what kept me sane as I negotiated the winding streets of the south of Spain? An English backseat driver.
With my right arm wrapped in a fiberglass cast up to my fingers, my hand couldn’t get a firm grip on a steering wheel. And shifting gears would be more difficult than defending the Chief Justice’s SALN. I already had difficulty making cambio for personal use, what more cambio for automotive use? If worse came to worse, I would need to sneak my travel-size yaya into the maleta to drive the car for me.
When the international media bus pulled into the Barcelona airport for our test drive, we were greeted by a sight that would make any car aficionado, race car driver or Customs official drool — a fleet of spanking-new BMW series 3 in Melbourne red metallic and mineral gray finish lined up along the parking lot.
Once my travel-size yaya wiped the drool off my chin, I giddily signed off on a BMW safety declaration form, a “renouncement of responsibility” waiver and a “You’re a lucky freaking
The BMW Series 3 navigation system is not the type of English accent most Pinoys are accustomed to hearing. Perhaps when they market it in the Philippines, they should get a voice talent whose English accent is familiar to Filipinos. Like Senator Miriam Defensor-santiago.
bastard” form and hopped into the car for a tutorial with Tomas, one of the BMW executives who was in charge of BMW’S vehicle integration, passenger safety and position dynamics aerodynamics among other things.
Tomas said the test drive route had already been programmed into the Series 3’s navigation system. The drive would take us from the airport heading towards Canbonastre, a boutique wine and hotel resort nestled at the foot of the Montserrat mountain range on the outskirts of Barcelona. Then, after a little tapas, a little cappuccino and a little bit of manual grape squishing, we would drive around the mountain range until we found ourselves back at the hotel.
While Tomas was describing the route, I was making good use of my adult diaper as I realized I’d be driving in a foreign country (where people actually followed road rules) with only the use of my left hand. Would I even be able to switch gears while zipping along the Barcelona countryside? This must be some sort of payback for all the bad karma accumulated by my right hand during my heathen bachelorhood.
Fortunately, Tomas explained I could switch gears in the new Series 3 with a simple touch of a button. Two buttons were located on the steering wheel — the left button (with a minus sign) was to downshift and the right button (with a plus sign) would shift me all the way up to sixth gear.
After an exhaustive remedial math session, Tomas elaborated on the car’s new driving style features. The first driving style was the “comfort” feature (a style used for regular driving); followed by “eco-pro” (a fuel-saving driving style with special gear shift adaptation and reduced climate energy consumption); then sport and sports-plus (a style that adjusts the suspension so you can use the Series 3 on a racetrack).
“And what button,” I asked, “will save the world from the evil forces of the Decepticons?” Tomas wrinkled his brow: “Vas ist?” “Forgive my husband, Tomas,” my wife interjected “He delivers really bad punch lines when his adult diapers are full.”
And to prove it had more testosterone than me, the Series 3 demonstrated a skill that spa- tially-challenged drivers like myself continue to attend driving school for: parallel parking assistance. To demonstrate the feature, Tomas drove past two parked cars with a gap between them so small not even my yaya could park the car. But when Tomas activated the parking assistance feature, the Series 3 automatically steered itself into the gap without a parking boy repeatedly banging his hand on the trunk of the car. I was simultaneously awed and emasculated.
“If only my husband were as easily programmable as the Series 3,” my wife sighed.
“You just have to push and twist the right pink parts, my love,” I replied.
While on the subject of intimate pink parts, Tomas instructed me to press a button near the side of my seat, and suddenly the seat beneath me inflated. Then the inflated seat started to massage my behind. One cheek at a time. It might not have been Swedish, it might not have been Shiatsu, it might not have had a happy ending, but it was enough to keep my butt cheeks smiling for the long trip.
When my cheeks were a bright rosy red, I asked Tomas: “What happens if I get lost?”
“There is an iphone integrated into the car that has a hotline to the event organizers.” “Oooh!” I oohed. “Can I keep the iphone?” “Sure, just purchase the new BMW Series 3 that comes along with it,” Tomas said with a smile. “Any more questions?” “Could you drive the car for me?” Tomas laughed (although I didn’t know what he found funny).
As we made our way out of the Barcelona airport, a pop-up display à la Minority Report appeared on my windshield to indicate the current speed limit, my cruising speed, plus directional arrows to navigate my next few turns. The only thing missing on the display was an Angry Birds application.
From the airport, I drove onto the freeway and lined up behind a row of cars heading towards the exit. Then — without warning — our engine stopped running! Our. Engine. Stopped. Running. In a foreign country where the only words I knew were those that would get me arrested.
I was about to scream like a newly circumcised adolescent when my wife slapped some sense into me. “Just press down on the brake, you fool,” she cooed with so much love in her voice.
The BMW engine obeyed immediately. “Remember that the Series 3 has a start-stop system?” she reminded me. “When you stop at traffic, the engine switches off automatically and goes on again when you want to continue driving.”
While on the freeway, I heard an authoritative English voice tell me in English where I should make my next turn. Initially, I ignored the voice for fear my wife might put me back on my anti-psychotic medication until I realized it was the GPS system. However, when I did follow the soothing spoken instructions, we still took several wrong turns, leading us
back to the airport. Was this really the navigation system? Or was this a new voice in my head to join the Mexican sumo wrestler and the Thai dwarf ladyboy?
Apparently, it wasn’t a problem with the navigation system, but more our differences in spoken English. You see, I distinctly recall the navigation system instructing me to turn onto “Fortuni” street while we were in a roundabout; so we circled the roundabout many times looking for this street until my wife was ready to rip out the navigation system with her bare hands and strangle the disembodied yet classy English voice.
After restraining my wife, we figured out that the navigation system was saying we had to make a right at the fourth “turning” ( Aaaaaah
hhh, yun pala) of the rotunda. However, it was not the type of English accent most Pinoys were accustomed to hearing. Perhaps when they market the new Series 3 in the Philippines, they should get a voice talent whose English accent is familiar to Filipinos. Like maybe Senator Miriam Defensor-santiago.
After all that, I was confident we would make our way to the wine resort without incident (unless my wife got into a heated argument with the GPS again). After all, I was driving a sixth-generation BMW Series 3. Over the years, driving BMWS has been clinically proven to increase testosterone levels, to enhance a man’s aesthetic features and, if he is a lucky freaking bastard, to test-drive his biological imperatives (whether these prerogatives were test driven in or out of the car is personal choice). Yes, the BMW is an aphrodisiac more potent than Spanish fly.
“What do you think of my driving with only one hand, with a pop-up display in front of me and a navigation system that sounds like Judi Dench, love? I feel like I’m channeling Daniel Craig as 007.” I smiled cheekily and arched one eyebrow.
“More like you’re channeling Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English,” she replied. “Thank God you’re driving a Series 3.”
I didn’t realize the BMW organizers were going to take me for a ride. A really, really long ride. We drove over several hundred miles of freeway, took hairpin curves down dirt country roads and through residential streets, along winding mountain roads and down narrow graffiti-filled eskinita, and around approximately 9,436 roundabouts. I thought I was auditioning for Amazing Race Barcelona until I remembered that the operative word of this whole exercise was “test” drive. It was a test of the car’s adaptability and suspension over different road conditions. It was a test of the car’s smoothness and handling in gripping the roads while negotiating sharp turns (all 9,346 of them). And it was a test of how long your bladder could hold out until you reached the wine resort.
With this in mind, I relaxed my shoulders, leaned back in the driver’s seat and relaxed my sphincter muscles. It was about time for me to enjoy the ride instead of being unduly worried about getting to my destination. My wife and I were finally able to take in the rustic scenery, the historic villages, the yellowing foliage, the picturesque vineyards and the many public restrooms that were on the way to our destination.
And when we finally made Canbonastre in the late afternoon, I felt newly circumcised: I had gone through a rite of passage by driving across the Spanish countryside in a German car with an English accent, relying solely on my Pinoy tenacity (and a wife who could decipher English-accented directions). My full-sized yaya back in Manila would have been proud.
After taking a gazillion shots of the majestic mountain range from the balcony, we braved the winding roads that wrapped around the Montserrat mountain range at sunset. Halfway up the mountain, I had another adult diaperfilling moment: I had never asked Tomas where the headlight switch was. But before I could scream like a newly circumcised adolescent, the car’s headlights switched on automatically. This car would probably score higher than me in an IQ test.
All in all, the experience offered me some serious bragging rights: not only was I one of the first Pinoys to drive the new BMW Series 3 cars; not only did the test drive give me quality time with my wife before the birth of our second child; but the BMW Series 3 was sending us home with well-massaged derrieres.
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