Other Half now a yuppie gas guzzler

The Other Half used to be the picture of environmental consciousness.

He drove a 1994 Toyota Tercel -- zero leg room but truly remarkable gas mileage. It had a bicycle rack sticking out of the trunk and a Share the Road specialty license plate, offered by Florida to raise money for bicycle trails. The plate features a poorly drawn picture of a man on a bicycle, but hey, I'm no art critic.

And finally, the Tercel had a bumper sticker with another man on a bicycle and the admonition, "Put fun between your legs." I never figured us for double-entendre bumper sticker people, but no amount of nagging resulted in the sticker's removal.

These days, Mr. Half is the picture of a yuppie gas guzzler. His parents offered him their old Chevrolet Suburban, and he was on it like a Republican on a tax break.

Before this transaction went down, I pulled him aside. "You commute 35 miles a day," I said. "Doesn't that seem like a lot of gas?"

"It will be like a small car payment," he assured me.

"The Tercel is paid off and hardly uses any gas," I insisted.

But it was too late. As soon as he saw the behemoth, the testosterone that coursed through his veins could not be denied. Nothing yells out, "I AM A MAN, SO DON'T MESS WITH ME" as much as a 60-foot-long, bright red vehicle that requires a step to get inside.

Not that I'm ungrateful for the Suburban and my in-laws' generosity. Truth be told, a 10-year-old compact car with 115,000 miles on it isn't the most confidence-inspiring vehicle. We spent several hundred dollars on repairs over the past couple of years. When we went to Carmax to sell the Tercel, I was surprised they offered us money for it.

But the vehicles in our family had always been Japanese, fuel-efficient and easy to park. Put a shower and toilet in a Suburban, and a family of four could live in there comfortably.

When Mr. Half let me drive it for the first time, it was on the condition that I take it through a car wash and put gas in it. It barely fit in the car wash, and it cost me $40 for half a tank.

I was scared.

Mr. Half took to it immediately. In fact, he even removed his lovely bumper sticker from the Tercel before the sale and transferred it to his new car. Typically, when someone tries to peel off a bumper sticker, it is torn to ribbons. This one came off and reapplied just fine, so our appearance of being white trash also remained intact.

Now Mr. Half wants to transfer his Share the Road license plate to the Suburban and refuses to see the irony of it. You put a couple of Suburbans side by side, and no cyclist is sharing the road. He's running off the road to avoid being flattened.

I give up.

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.