1y ago

What is the worst case of keeping up with the Joneses that you have seen?

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Middle-class suburban streets, miles away from farm or forest, full of sparkly clean gargantuan pickup trucks
- Far too many people drive 200% of a truck when they really only need 10% of a truck.
  Not talking work trucks or weekend warrior trucks, but specifically trucks that have never seen more off road than the lawn, never hauled a load that took up the whole bed, never towed anything near their rating.
  Far far too often, it's about keeping up with the neighbors truck.
  
  Don't forget that these owners will be first in line to complain about high gas prices.
  
  I have no idea why this is fun for people. I have one of those giant trucks for pulling my horse trailer. The truck is so fucking hard drive around in traffic. I hate having to commute in it. It is impossible to park at the store. I would never own it if I didn't have to.
  
  I've seen it discussed before and worked with one guy who had a bro dozer. It's all about image. They complain about high gas prices and expensive repairs, but make any suggestions about downsizing their truck and all of a sudden they defend the truck as a way of life or say the noise is "raw power" or talk about how they'll someday tow something with it to see what it can do.
  They put up with the difficulties in order to look cool.
  
  Mine's a 2004 F150 and looks like trash. :) I like it that way.
  
  Does it do truck stuff?
  It's gotta be paid off at that age, so maybe it's a cheaper thing to have that also does what you need out of a vehicle.
  
  Bought it cash a couple of years back. Hurricane beat it up, guy didn't want to continue working on it.
  I beat hell out of that thing. Because it's a truck, not a status symbol.
  
  It's not a status symbol of wealth or fake toughness. It is a status symbol of things getting done for cheap, places travelled without so much care, and possibly hard driving.
- And they only put groceries in the back seat because the truck bed is "too dirty"
  
  If you never put stuff in the back of your truck because it’s “too dirty”, you absolutely do not need a truck.
- There was a Miller High Life commercial I used to love. It showed a guy’s hand holding a hose and watering his lawn the “old fashioned way.” Then it showed the neighbor’s brand new SUV in the driveway, and said, “The only ‘off-road action’ this $50,000 monstrosity will ever see if is its owner accidentally backs over a flowed bed,”
  Wish I could find that commercial somewhere. Makes me laugh to this day when I see the glorified grocery getters in all their perfectly detailed glory!
- I've started seeing US pick up trucks here in the UK in a city and they really are rediculous. Really large (comically so) and the truck bit is open to the elements although I have never ever seen anyone using the truck bit for anything whatsoever. Rediculous waste of space and I'm surprised they're ever legal here.
- An even better example: the suburbs in general. Every aspect of them.
- Hey, maybe they need to be ready to haul full sheets of plywood at any moment
- That reads like a Joni Mitchell lyric.
  I mean that in a good way.
- And they run on Diesel!

92 comments