I sat back and inhaled deeply. My pulse quickened. My skin tingled with the thrill of it. My brain filled with endorphins and I took a long, deep breath of the stuff. I closed my eyes and sighed; I could do this all day.

I fucking love that new car smell.

Already one of the most satisfying scents known to man, I was now experiencing it as God and the automated production line at Nissan intended. Because this, was my very own new car. Three years after my first promotion and driving the car I had owned since high school and now I was sitting in the parking lot at a medium-level dealership. For the first time, I was about to drive a car that I hadn’t bought from a sweet old Korean lady on Trademe with money from my paper route.

Is this what being an adult feels like? Because I am all about it.

I breathe in again. New, new, NEW. I press my thumb against the centre of the steering wheel and the battery hums to life. A clear, but unimposing  augmented reality display is projected onto the corners of the windscreen. It shows me a start-up menu, navigation, weather forecast, and a whole lot of greyed out boxes. I like the sleek look of the map icon. The forecast animation is contained to a tidy little image of a sun with a temperature reading. I do NOT like the cluster of little grey squares near the bottom of the screen.

It looks ugly. It looks, poor. 

The dealer mentioned “extra features” while I was inputting my security data, but I hadn’t expected this. I figured he was trying to sell me a spoiler or spinning rims or some other tacky garbage that people without personalities strap to their cars.

I decided to go for a drive anyway and enjoy the afternoon before I resorted to clearing those sad, little grey boxes away. Just as I shifted the car to reverse, an icon appeared with a soft pop accompanied by an uber-calm, unnecessarily sexy female voice that chimed through the speakers.

‘Your reverse camera is currently running the standard resolution of five megapixels; would you like to upgrade now for free? Upgrade includes five more megapixels and night-mode.’ The computer said 'night-mode' as though it was the kind of thing normally restricted by parental lock.

I frowned. This was stupid. If the camera already has ten megapixels, why would they disable half of them? What kind of idiot would want that? I quickly tapped the green button on the steering wheel that meant ‘yes’ and one of the grey boxes on the windscreen shimmered and turned into a small, black camera. I activated it and a crystal-clear image of the car parked behind me popped up.

‘Free upgrade enabled’. Purred the computer lady, like I had just satisfied her beyond her wildest dreams.  

Alright, time to drive. I manoeuvred out of the lot and went to pull onto the highway. Time for some speed. Just as I went to move into a higher gear, another icon appeared and the synthetic voice was back filling my ears with another proposition.

‘Currently, only gears one through four are available, would you like to upgrade now for free? Upgrade includes gear five’.

Jesus Christ. I thought this was my car. I hurriedly tapped the green button and immediately saw another gear activate in the HUD. At the same time, another of the grey annoyances vanished into a satisfying, digitized mist.

I found a clear lane and stamped on the accelerator just in time to drown out the next utterance of ‘Free upgrade, enabled.’

Twenty minutes later and I really had a good feel for this car; What an absolute beauty. I had also eliminated nearly every one of my grey boxes. I was feeling good. Definitely time for some music.

I went to connect my streaming account, when that familiar pop rang out.

‘Streaming is only available on premium mode. All free upgrades expended. Activate now? $199’.

‘Premium mode? What the hell is this? Get fucked’, I said out loud.  I hit RADIO and drove angrily while the only song I could find, “Mr Sandman” by the Chordettes, chimed through the incredibly clear speakers.

I couldn’t find any other stations. Nothing being played from this century, at least. Un-fucking-believable. No wonder the car was so cheap, they only sold me half of the fucking thing. I wanted to get home and look up some consumer purchase laws before I went back to the dealership and gave those clowns an earful.

I stamped on the gas and came up to the winding road just before my neighbourhood. One of the grey boxes started wiggling urgently. That was weird. I couldn’t see any upgrade offers. It was probably just trying to prompt me to look into it. Well, joke’s on you, car. I am not buying.

I accelerated and the same box wiggled again. This time with a polite, but urgent beep accompanying it. I growled and tried to swipe it away. As I did, several things happened at once.

1.     Huge, red letters suddenly filled the windscreen which read COLLISION IMMINENT.

2.     The engine switched itself off and put all its power into the electro-magnetic braking system which, I had been assured, was world class.

3.     I drove straight into a life-sized, iron sculpture of a pine tree.

The sound of the crash was so loud, I actually remember screaming from the sheer weight of noise that hit my eardrums before I blacked out.

I came to, painfully. Dazed and bleeding, I opened my eyes and tried to move my arms. More pain in each of those than I’d ever felt in my life. Broken, both of them. The car was wrecked. Pieces of metal and plastic that I didn’t recognize were everywhere. A layer of dust (why is there always dust?) covered every visible surface. The windscreen was munted, but still intact somehow. I tried to activate my phone by speaking, but my tongue was swollen beyond belief. I must’ve bitten it when I crashed. That would explain the globules of blood around my lips. My eyes finally focused, and I could now read the cracked windscreen.

That voice, which now sounded far more smug than it did sexy, crackled through the smashed speakers.

‘Currently, you only have the standard airbag and collision functions enabled. Would you like to activate additional airbags?’