by Lore Sjöberg

Fuzzy Dice
The real debate is not over fuzzy dice versus no fuzzy dice. The real debate is over white fuzzy dice versus pink fuzzy dice. You see, your average 50's throwback T-Bird wannabee will go for the plain old regular white fuzzy dice, crank up the Billy Joel and/or Huey Lewis and go cruising. It takes the sort of man who's really comfortable with his sexuality to dare to use display the fuzzy pink dice. This is the same sort of hell-with-what-others think attitude that inspired young men to spend hours on their hair, wear tight jeans, and wiggle their hips in public in the first place. B+

Air Fresheners
I don't think I need to point out that an enclosed space with a pine-shaped scent exuder, the air does not become fresh. It becomes chokingly pine-scented. Which is not to say that lethal pine levels are not preferable to some of the car smells I've encountered. At least the traditional "tree that smells like pine" has a sort of aethetic logic. Less comprehensible are the trees that smell like baby powder, and the Tasmanaian Devils that smell like anything other than a carnivorous marsupiual. C+

Sunshades
No fewer than two times in my life have I noticed a car, empty, sitting in a parking lot with a sunscreen saying in big red letters "EMERGENCY. PLEASE CONTACT POLICE!" The emergency in question appeared to be the crisis-level inability of the car owner to figure out which side of the car faces out. It's not like most car-oriented emergencies allow you time to fold out your cardboard Garfield screen anyway. C

Dash-Mounted Notepad
"Note...to...self. Don't be...such...an...inattentive jerk...while driving..." WHAM! The alternative is to write on the notepad while not taking your eyes off the road. That usually results in messages that appear to read "Pick up whelf in sorghum choot. How tiny froop. Mork 3:16." C-

Compasses
Oh, these are a big help. "We're twenty minutes late for the cheese auction, I have no idea where we are, and we're, umn, heading kind of westish." That in addition to the fact that most dashboard compasses look like they're manufactured with all the quality control of a bootleg Power Ranger. I wouldn't trust one of them to tell me which way is down if I dropped it, much less lead me on some sort of urban orienteering spree. D