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Starbucks is not normally the place for fraternization. You go in, you get on line, you order your drink, you get on another line and wait for your drink. Once you get your drink, you either add things to it or not, get a napkin or not, sit down or not, stay or leave. One of the things you never, ever do is challenge the manliness of the guy next to you in line.

Well… one of the things you rarely do.

The guy in front of me leaned over and said “Tell me that’s your wife’s car.” I had no idea why he said that, what he meant, or what he was after, so I assured him that no, that was indeed my car.

I guess that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. On his planet, only women drive the Prius. Men drive… well, “manly” cars. Now, given what a car actually is — a means of locomotion intended to move people and things from one place to another — I’m not entirely sure how gender identification comes into play. Broadly speaking, the car requires you to exercise control over its speed and direction, and it accepts input via the gas and brake pedals, the steering wheel, and some mechanism that controls the way power is transferred from the power plant to the wheels — a shift lever, a shift lever and a clutch, or some similar arrangement. Women can perform all of these functions as well as men, and men can perform all those functions as well as women. It really doesn’t take much talent to turn a wheel or to depress a pedal. The trick is in knowing when to do it, and how much to do.

The Prius, apparently, doesn’t accelerate rapidly enough for the gentleman who had engaged me in conversation. He suggested that the Prius might accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in around eleven seconds. I suspect that he prefers to achieve sixty miles per hour a few seconds sooner, although we never did discuss what the benefit might be. Neither did we discuss how any car we might bring up in discussion probably pales in comparison with a catapult-launched jet. Or a rocket. Or one of those rides at Disney’s California Adventure.

Now, I happen to like the Prius because it’s comfortable, because it’s quiet, and I just plain get a kick out of the way an electric motor accelerates. I’ve driven my share of muscle cars over the years, I’ve driven my share of sticks, I’ve left my share of rubber on the road. I’d probably have gotten to where I am today if I hadn’t done any of those things. In the great scheme of things, I suppose I could throw my money away driving a Lamborghini, I could take pride in knowing that I could outrun anything on the road, I could contemplate how quickly my life would end if I ran into something at 120 miles per hour. I choose not to, though.

We didn’t actually get anywhere in our discussion. He had never driven a Prius, and swore never to even get in one.

I feel the same way about Mercuries.

I never did notice what he was drinking. I should have paid attention. I had an Americano with an extra shot. He, no doubt, was drinking one of those girlie Frappuccino drinks favored by muscle car aficionados worldwide.