[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

Why can’t I simultaneously heat the interior of my car and defrost the windshield? Why is this an either-or proposition? Yes, I can get heat through the floor vents while defrosting but the steering wheel is freezing and leeching whatever warmth was left in my numb fingers so immediacy is required up top instead of down below and no promises of eventual relief from rising heat will mollify my mystification at the inertness of the wide open and ready dash vents. I drive a Hyundai. It’s not the most luxurious vehicle ever devised but if there’s one thing they nailed, I mean engineered beyond my dreams and avarice, it’s the power of the heater. I can go from teeth-clattering misery as I get in the driver’s seat to wishing I had taken off my jacket or sweater in a matter of minute, from sitting in an icy pond to standing under a launching space shuttle. It’s a quick quickener.

The Koreans outfitted my car with four fan speeds. That tells me that there’s a little wiggle room. I could set the heat at fan speed two or three to warm me and my fellow travelers and there should theoretically still be enough juice in the motor to push warmed air through the vents at the base of the windshield where carpool number cards live. Naturally, I’d prefer to have both the defrost and heater roaring at speed four, but I would settle for as low as two if that’s what it takes to see both in action simultaneously. Not speed one though. I’m not a pushover.