Rudolph the Road-Raging Tesla

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Nothing says Christmas Cheer like getting cut off in traffic by an emissions-free vehicle wearing reindeer antlers.

If life is going to spit in your face, it can at least taste of egg nog, right?

The Holidays are upon us. It's neither a good thing or a bad thing; it's a thing. Life goes on as it already is, only things are magnified. Some will make greater efforts to smile at strangers, while some will bear their teeth like predators.

I've come to like Christmas. Some of this is me maturing enough to shun an inherent nihilism. Some is being a parent to a nine-year-old girl. And some of this is wanting to see humanity celebrate itself.

But let's talk Tesla. I appreciate the Croatian inventor for whom it was named and don't half-mind the creator behind the car. But the drivers? They tend to feel special knowing that their carbon footprints match Santa Clause's steeds. A strict diet of peppermint bark and self-importance gets you kick-ass mileage.

I've never driven a Tesla. I've never even been inside one. So from my Neo-Luddite's perspective I can only guess that those laptop-screen thingys are nav systems? Or the clean-conscience equivalent of a dashboard? Or:

Drop-down, itemized lists of why a Tesla owner is better than a non-Tesla owner and can drive in a manner that shows it? That's it.

Are Teslas meant to be aesthetically displeasing? They're so uniformly unappealing. Beauty is so yesterday, is it? Beauty is meant for the unwashed masses to feel better about themselves? This intentional ugliness is the vehicular equivalent of hockey moms wearing Bass Pro Shop caps—the very same hockey moms who would squirm at the idea of sinking a hook into an earthworm.

Let's go over that itemized list on the screen:

• Rudolph the Tesla drives the sleigh of the evil Anti-Santa Claus: this guy's purpose is not to disperse gifts to deserving children across the world, but to hoard all the retail deals within a 20-mile radius, which it will then plop under the Great Tree so that the suburban hellspawn can sink their ghastly fangs into the wrapping paper and tear away like the skin of a medieval heretic who misinterpreted the Gospel of Thomas. Anti-Santa Claus's sleigh is fashioned from the bones of overworked Tanzanian nickel miners. The reins are made from the entrails of Indonesian children. H-Hyah!

• Rudolph the Tesla doesn't need to use turn signals because that would require blinker fluid, which is ungreen and wasteful.

• Rudolph the Tesla does not believe in turning lanes. Adhering to traffic rules that prevent accidents is for the polluters who violate Mother Gaia. If polluters are to behave like a herd, then they shall be treated as such.

• Rudolph the Tesla gets to go first at four-way stops, regardless of who got there first. Respect the hierarchy. It doesn't matter that Rudolph stops six feet from the line and you can see the entire word STOP. That STOP is for you, not Rudolph. So, STOP.

• Rudolph the Tesla turns off its ignition at red lights. This is chiefly done to “save” the Charge—O, the most holy Charge!—but also to virtue-signal that burning fossil fuels when one isn't moving is asenine, anathema, abominable, anti-environmental, and assholish.

And finally,

• Rudolph the Tesla does not have one motor like all the pollutin’ plebs on the road. Nope. Rudy possesses a dual motor. Such a fact is even advertised above the right rear bumper, like some braggadocious tramp stamp. Not one motor, okay? Two motors. “Well, whoopdee-effing-do for you, Rudy!” Of course this is the vehicular equivalent of schizophrenia. “Tell you what, Rudy. Get your two halves to agree on what's right, and then we'll talk.” But nope. Rudy isn't open to talk. Rudy owns the road. Two is better than one. End of discussion.

So how to combat this epidemic of electric-vehicle aggression? Well, I'm afraid no composer has come forward with a Christmas carol to exorcize Rudolph back to hell. Like with all battles that prove futile on the terrestrial plane, we must go inward.

We must adopt meditation as a daily practice. Mindfulness and controlled breathing are the surest way to avoid succumbing to anti-road rage rage. Keep your shit together. You will win in the end. Kabbalistic hitbodedut, or talking to God, keeps you linked to a higher purpose where the mundane noodlings of the Bass Pro Shoppers cannot reach you. Hitbonenut, or mindfulness, can also serve this purpose. It is done with chanting, preferably something with a hum, or a constant drone. Anything New Age-y.

Wait. Shit! They co-opted the hums too! Each Tesla comes with its own Yanni soundtrack to underly all the perpetrated evil.

Know what? There is nothing to be done. We must all succumb to the ones and zeros of the Cloud. This is the future, and the future is the truth. The thick stench of superciliousness will overtake the atmosphere and chew up the rest of the ozone layer so that Sol Invictus can fricasee us into bacon candy.

Here should be where I write a parody of the carol you have in mind. But you know what? I just can't. Getting cut off by Rudolph with no chance at retribution renders me unmelodious. Since Rudolph accelerates off the line so well, there's zero chance I will initiate a scenario where the thing will be converted into a four-wheeled funeral pyre featuring a human smore's in the driver’s seat. I don't think I'll ever carry a tune again, other than a white-noise torrent of hellish screams comprising the agony peeled from the throats of those condemned for all eternity to chug pistons hot as brimstone.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

XOXOXOXO