My car is developing an auto-inferiority complex from being constantly squeezed between hulking behemoths in the parking lots of our little corner of suburbia. Which leads me to ask: am I the only one still driving a regular-sized (e.g. not a SUV, mini-van, or maxi-sized four-wheel-drive) vehicle these days?

Okay. You have three or more kids, and each of those kids has friends and sporting equipment and band instruments. I get that, especially in the carpool-intense younger years. Or you live in a snowy region with lots of hills. But what’s with all the rest of the drivers out here in picket fence-land? Do they really need to drive that humongous Hummer to pick up a measly old carton of milk from the supermarket? And just how much off-roading does one do on the way to the mall, anyway?

While it’s true that my regular-sized vehicle may be overshadowed on the roads and in the parking lots, there is one place it does stand head-and-shoulders above the transportation-on-steroids crowd. And that would be? The gas pump.