Over the last hundred years or so, ever since Model T himself got up one day and invented the car, we have slowly gotten so used to cars in this country that we hardly bat an eye at driving to something over an hour away. That type of journey used to take days, sometimes even weeks, but we have become so complacent in our auto-centric world that we don’t even think about it any more. Apparently, due to thinking about our cars less, we have start to become unfamiliar with certain words and phrases. In fact, according to a new study, fewer Americans than ever can identify a compact car.

 

We spoke with some True Americans about this over the weekend, showing them pictures of different cars and asking them to identify them, hoping to prove our point that the study was wrong. Turns out, the worst is true and it might be even worse than we expected.

 

Jaime, 17. “A compact car? Wasn’t that called a compact disc back in the day, like a CD? My mom was born in the 80s so she taught me all about this stuff. So I guess if I had to choose from these 4 cars, I would say the big truck is the compact one. You could probably fit a bunch of CDs in there.”

 

Claire, 25. “Hmm, OK. So I’m looking at these four pictures, right? And I want to say that one of them is the compact car, but I don’t know exactly which one that would be. I can wait here, stalling for time until I can figure this out, or I could tell you I already know what it is and give myself the air that I know what I am doing. Well, how about this? It’s the third one. HaHA! I figured it out while I was stalling. Take that, random survey. You just got Claire-d.” 

 

Julianne, 2. “Oh me? I’m just a baby.” 

 

Miguel, 42. “Listen bud, I’m making so much money with my cryptocurrency “Buzzbucks” that I don’t have time to learn the different types of cars. Small, big, compact, portable, these words are meaningless to me. All I need to know is the color and my Uber drive will call me when he realizes I’m colorblind and just guide me to the vehicle. You guys are living in the past, I’m living in the now.” 

 

Hansen, 35. “I could have sworn I knew what a compact car was, but looking at this picture I’m not so sure. Have I been parking in the wrong spots this whole time? What a fool I must have seemed to all the random strangers at the Barnes & Noble. A fool! Ugh. I must go revoke my membership and begin the long process of forgetting I ever lived that life. I am truly, truly ashamed.”

 

Georgina, 20. “Listen, I don’t care.” 

 

Turns out, none of them got a single question correct. In fact, at one point we forgot we had even asked for questions.

 

 

 

 

 

This was written by Nathan Ellwood, kind of. Follow him @NPEllwood.