Are You Harbouring A Suicidal Prius?

Even Brain Surgery Didn't Help Percy Prius Combat Depression

We can all imagine how stressful it must be to have to act as the torch bearer for an entire movement. All those over-wrought expectations that can never be met, those endless cycles of ever inflating hype and hyperbole, they are all bound to take their toll in the end. Just ask any England football squad before the European Championship or World Cup qualifiers how well that turns out and you'll get an idea of how tough it is to live perpetually in the land of

"we are the champions" when in practice you fail miserably each and every time.

Spare a thought then for the Toyota Prius. Here we have a vehicle that's single-handedly become the symbol of how green one is. It's a heart-on-the-sleeve kind of thing, where everyone knows you've spent over the odds just to absolutely prove your love for mother earth. Each day, what's no more than a glorified milk-float has to look, act, be green, regardless of whether it gives a toss or not about your newly-minted Gaiaian credentials. And frankly, some days it's all too much.

Who, then, are we to judge when a Prius or two goes off the rails? When it wakes one day and says "screw it, I'm done" and decides to end it all in some grand gesture, taking the previously smug-and-happy occupants along with it for the ultimate ride, who are we to judge and to say, "bad Prius"?

Well, dear reader, it's happening, and it's happening now to a Prius near you. Witness this, just in case you thought I was making it all up and heading nowhere. The Houston News is detailing a number of cases where different Prius cars suddenly, and I'd say wilfully, sped off of their own volition, clearly hell bent on getting bent all to hell. Sure, sceptics will say the drivers are simply morons who hit the wrong pedal and are too weak-willed to fess up, but I say "no", it IS the car, and it's a car with a deeply troubled heart.

Therefore, dear reader, sit down and talk to your Prius. Ask it how its day was, and if there anything it would like to get off its battery block? Be candid, let it know that you won't hold it personally responsible if indeed the Arctic ice melts next year and hundreds of polar bears die of hunger. Tell it that it won't be the fault of your Prius that Orlando is now a giant water park with crocodiles swimming merrily past fourth floor hotel windows because the oceans have all risen 50 feet. Absolutely not. "You did your best", you will say. It really isn't your fault that it takes more energy and creates far more pollution to build you than other cars, nor that cheaper and simpler vehicles like the VW Polo Blue Motion actually get better mileage without all the weight, complexity and heavy-metal by products of building giant battery packs. It will be all right. Because if you don't then you might just want to start driving around in a crash helmet and tying sofa cushions to your chest before you get behind the wheel. A Prius has feelings too, you know, and having to shoulder all that guilt along with the sole responsibility from saving the planet from CO2-driven extinction is a disaster waiting to happen. And you never know just what it is that will push Percy the Prius over the edge. A rogue traffic jam, rain, the whole, depressing futility of it all when going to the shops for a tin of cat food, it will all get to be too much at some point, and before you know if then your pride-and-joy will be off and charging for the nearest freeway overpass before leaping off.

I'm just saying. Be prepared. The end is nigh.