Car bars

Elaine and I were headed toward Staples when we noticed two women parked in front of the store, struggling to fit a swiveling task chair into the back of a BMW. “Do you need a hand?” I asked, having had some experience fitting similar chairs into similar spaces.

They did need a hand, but not in the way I had assumed. They had the rear seats folded down and were trying to figure out how to remove the bar behind those seats so that they could slide the chair all the way in. One was looking at the BMW owner’s manual, which offered the tersest guidance: “Press the release button.” Which would be where, exactly? Four of us looked at the bar, both ends, and none of us could figure it out.

A fifth person was on her way into Staples. I figured I'd ask if she knew how to remove the bar. She had no idea. A man was on his way into Staples. He too had no idea. We all stood around.

It was sheer luck that one of BMW women did something — what? — and the bar popped out, and two of us pushed the chair in.

This afternoon Elaine and I looked at our new vehicle, a hybrid Toyota RAV4, to see if we could figure out its bar. And we did, but it’s a much less intuitive bar than the bar in our now-gone 2010 Prius. The RAV4 bar is called a luggage cover, though I think that name should more properly apply to the cover that pulls out from the bar to hide worldly possessions.

I like our RAV4 — a lot, really a lot — but everything about it is less intuitive. I’ve yet to look up the Hold button in the thick manual, even thicker, I think, than the BMW’s.

[RAV4 ? It means “Recreational Active Vehicle with 4-wheel drive.” Apple Dictation and Slide to Type both rendered the name correctly the first time out. God knows what a RAV4 will cost with higher tariffs.]