That is the question I ask myself whenever I see a Hyundai commercial. Yes, I know that Jeff Bridges is a man, and The Dude is a character. But, when I hear that voice, I can’t help but think of how a new Hyundai would really pull the room together. If you look in my driveway tonight, you’ll see how compelling that argument really is. Our old Saturn, Blue, was falling apart. At 8 years old, she was way past warranty. The struts rattled incessantly, the Saturn dealer had told us that was standard. Ole Blue’s check engine popped on and off at random and the mechanic said it had to do with a part that turned the check engine light on, which is an expensive and unnecessary replacement. So we lived with it. Over the past two months, we’d been scanning other cars, checking them out in ads, looking them up on the web, sneaking glances at them while we drove down the street. It felt illicit and to be sitting in my trusty car and lusting after a new one. This blue sedan had ferried me back and forth when I lived in Santa Clarita and worked near LACMA (that’s about 50 miles, in LA traffic). She had moved us from the Valley to the Sea. Blue was the car that had carried sick Weasel and Munchy to their vet appointments. That was the backseat where I had curled into a fetal position on the drive home after getting food poisoning at a wedding in Northern California. There were traces of my eye-liner, mascara, lip-gloss and a variety of lotions and sunscreens wiped under the driver seat. She has a indentation in her hood from my butt, from when I thought the...