By Tim Sanders

Nothing is simple anymore. Except for, possibly, my wife and I. Especially I. I say that because we recently purchased another vehicle, and have been reminded by that vehicle on a regular basis that it is smarter than we are. Or than I are, as my wife would hasten to point out.

Many younger readers may not know this, but automobiles have not always been the complicated, computerized wonder machines they are today. Eons ago, during the last Ice Age, the North American continent was much as it is now, except icier. Shortly after the glaciers receded, when woolly mammoths roamed primordial auto factories and engineers were still dragging their knuckles on the ground, one Neanderthal turned to the other and said, "you know, DeWayne, if we was to take this small block V-8, put in two four-barrel carbs, high compression heads, and dual exhaust, we could probably squeeze 245 horsepower out of her!" Fossil evidence shows this occurred around 1956 AD.

In those days there was much less to worry about with your car. Parents didn’t have to fear that their children would get their little heads stuck in the rear windows, because it was almost impossible for a child to crank up a window while sticking his head outside. Nobody knew anything about catalytic converters, so you didn’t have to worry about yours going bad. There were no airbags, so obviously they never malfunctioned. All cars had the same type of radios--simple AM devices, with the on/off knob on the left and the tuning knob on the right–so you didn’t need to study a manual to learn how to operate one. You didn’t have to worry about locking your gas cap, since back then gas was so cheap nobody would bother stealing it. And spare tires were regular, full-sized tires, and bore no resemblance to today's licorice Life Savers.

But the minivan we recently bought, while only a 2002 model, still leaves my wife and I in the dust, technology-wise. It took us fifteen minutes or more to learn how to use the keyless entry system, since one click only opens doors on the driver’s side, and it takes two clicks in rapid succession to open the doors on the passenger’s side. We discovered by accident what happens when you push the remote’s "PANIC" button, and the neighbors were not amused. The power sliding door on the passenger’s side, which responds eagerly to the keyless remote, cannot be budged by the human hand at all–at least we haven’t discovered the combination of buttons we must push to allow us to open it manually yet. The rationale for many of this vehicle’s idiosyncrasies is that it was designed for families with small children, and equipped with buttons up front to keep those little dears from opening doors, or adjusting the rear climate control, or tossing family pets out the windows without electronic permission from the pilot’s seat. That is all well and good, except that most of our friends are not small children, and should be allowed to close windows, open doors, and throw pets out into traffic at their own discretion.

But the main problem with this fine, well-equipped van is that the instrument panel is just chock full of things the owner’s manual describes as "service reminder indicators." There may be as many as seventy-five of them–I counted them on my fingers until I began to dramp. Here’s how those little busybody annoyances work:

MARILYN: There’s a warning light on.

ME: Which one is it?

MARILYN: You tell me. It looks like some kind of a little diving helmet, and it says "CHECK" under it.

ME (examining the light carefully): I think it’s a "check engine" light.

So we pull over, and after spending several minutes trying to figure out why the hood latch release lever isn’t on the right side of the steering wheel where it's supposed to be, I find it, get out and check the engine. Then I return.

MARILYN: Well?

ME: I checked the engine, and it’s still there.

MARILYN: Do you think it needs oil?

ME: No, there’s a little oil can that lights up when you need oil.

MARILYN: Could it be overheating?

ME: No, if it were doing that, our temperature gauge would tell us.

After scouring the owner’s manual, I finally learn that when the "CHECK" light under that diving helmet comes on, we are supposed to take the van immediately to an authorized dealer and show him the light. Unless, of course, there is a loose gas cap. That is because, on page 2,039, Subsection 4, Item 92 of the manual, I discover that the "CHECK DIVING HELMET" light is actually an engine "malfunction indicator lamp." and apparently through some kind of electronic voodoo this genius vehicle interprets a loose gas cap as an engine malfunction. I check the gas cap. This takes a while, too, since the latch that opens the fuel door is on the left side of the driver’s seat, where the backrest adjustor is supposed to be. Sure enough, the gas cap is kind of loose, so I tighten it. But when we drive off, the little light remains on. The manual says it will probably go off on its own after a "several driving trips."

Other perplexing service reminder indicators which have had us hopping in and out of the van and throwing the owner’s manual at each other include:

LIGHT THAT LOOKS LIKE MAN STRAPPED IN ELECTRIC CHAIR BLOWING A LARGE BUBBLE - This does not mean "someone in the car is chewing gum and must be punished," although that would be a nice warning light to have. No, I looked it up, and it is an "SRS warning light," which means that the SRS is malfunctioning. SRS, as best as I can figure, is an acronym for the airbags.

CIRCLE INSIDE PARENTHESES WITH EXCLAMATION POINT INSIDE CIRCLE - To the untrained eye this could mean "turn the wheel, fool!" or possibly "exit the vehicle immediately and run around it!" Or it could simply be helpful punctuation advice. Apparently, according to the manual, it means that there is something wrong with the parking brake, and the fine engineers at the auto plant couldn’t spell "PARKING BRAKE!"

TINY LIGHT THAT RESEMBLES AN OLD-FASHIONED SET OF HAIR CLIPPERS WITH TWO ARROWS POINTING TO A DOT IN THE MIDDLE - This one threw both of us off, but when we looked it up, it turned out to be the "low tire pressure warning light." Of course it doesn’t tell you which tire is low. That wouldn’t be any fun.

There are other warning lights, all set at the factory to blink on at random intervals, just to keep you on your toes. There are lights telling you to fill your fuel tank, lights advising you to check your battery, lights reminding you to buckle up, lights reminding you to unbuckle, lights indicating that one of your doors is ajar, lights indicating that one of your jars is a door, slip indicator lights, traction control system lights, lights which suggest that your wife may have left her purse on the kitchen table, lights advising you that someone is running amok in the back seat, and several others using acronyms like ABS, OD and VSC, which mean nothing to you. There is even one indicator light which warns you that one or more of your other indicator lights is on. And when the warning lights don’t get your attention, there are also buzzers.

Our little minivan does not have one of those satellite navigational systems, and it’s just as well. If it did, right now we’d be trying to figure out how, with all of that high-tech assistance, we’d managed to miss our turn onto Highway 411 and wound up in Tierra del Fuego, getting directions from a penguin.