I wanted to try out an e-bike last week. Luckily, there are racks full of rental e-bikes all over town. Unluckily, the only way to rent them is to download an app to your smart phone. To download it, you have to complete a shit-ton of paperwork (notionally – it’s all electronic, but I had to enter my name almost as many times on that as I did when I signed a home mortgage). Then, you have to sign in about a dozen times. Then, you have to pay them. No matter how many times I tried that last part, the app kept crashing. Eventually, I gave up and went home.

The bike rack I went to was in the parking lot of a local hotel where there were a lot of tents set up to advertise stuff. One of the tents was for Tesla. I wasn’t anywhere near it, but because I was standing there so long futzing with the app on my phone, I guess the guy saw me as a target of opportunity, wandered over, and asked me if I’d like to take a look at the Teslas.

I was actually offended. The idea that anyone would believe I was interested in a Tesla was revolting. This was a prejudice I didn’t know I had. I might as well admit that this is a prejudice I’m not going to try to remediate.

“No,” I told him flatly, without the “thank you.”

“You sure?” he asked. “We can take it for a test drive if you like it.”

I was thinking of saying something like, “I would never consciously put money in the pocket of your megalomaniacal CEO for any reason ever.” But instead I just flatly repeated, “No.” He got the hint and went to find another mark.