HEADREST IN PEACE

Until a few months ago, I owned a car with incredibly uncomfortable headrests.  Well, they were uncomfortable until someone showed me how to take them completely out, spin them around, and put them in backward.  Then, I had comfortable headrests.

Today my teammate and I have to go off-site for a three-hour training session.  The place where we are going is only down the street, so we could walk if we wanted to, except that it is downhill the whole way there.  That means that it will be uphill all the way back.

Forget it.  We're driving.

Like me, my teammate recently replaced her car.  Her newer car is a Prius, the exact model I wanted until I snagged myself a steal of a deal on a sedan.  (I'm still happy with my financial decision, but I have not warmed to the car itself... at all.)  I am anxious to ride in the car, and I find it quite nice.  My sister has a Prius very similar to this one, except she has the shorter model.  My teammate's Prius is the larger, wagon-like model.

The first thing I notice in my teammate's car is that the drivers' seat is way up -- waaaaaaaaay up --- close to the steering wheel.  Unlike my sister, who is tall and fits in her Prius quite nicely, my co-worker is short and sits near to the pedals.  I also notice that she fits under the headrest and resembles a starship pilot all tucked neatly in as if waiting for hyperspace mode to kick in.

I'm not going to lie: it's kind of cool, kind of like driving along with Han Solo.  Or, maybe, Yoda.

(Not my teammate's car, but a close second.)

After our three-hour off-site training, we drive back up the long hill to our school of origin.  In the parking lot, my teammate announces that she loves the new car except for the headrests.  I tell her the trick from my old car about turning the headrests around backward.

"I wish I could just get rid of them," she says.  "I can't see over them, and it's like driving blind on the highway."

Riding with my tall sister in her Prius, I never noticed this problem before because I've always been a passenger, but my teammate is correct.  The Prius has giamundo headrests.  They're practically the size of seats themselves.  No problem, I assure her.  I've got this.  We short people need to stick together.

I press the nearly imperceptible buttons on the bases of each, and I yank out the headrests from the back bench seat -- all three headrests.  She needs the front done, too.  Out comes the passenger one, and, after repositioning the seat, the driver's side headrest follows suit.  All in all, five headrests have been removed and thrown into the large, cavernous back, left to roll around like errant body parts.

I won't see my l'il buddy until Tuesday, but I'm anxious to know how her commute goes and whether or not she can safely change lanes without sheer terror when driving on the highway.  I'm not ashamed to admit, either, that I wonder if she hits hyperspace mode and gets home in half the time it usually takes her.  Now that her starship has been overhauled, she should zoom right along.