And yet, every life deserves a moment when we are not being watched. Even before my car starting watching me, I had a growing sense of being under surveillance. In an effort to stop credit card fraud, our bank has recently encouraged my partner and I to add an app, linked to our shared account. So every time either of us spends money, both our phones ding.
I get to know when Jocasta has bought a coffee. She finds out whenever I buy a six-pack of beer on the way home. I don’t know if this is progress. I feel like a creepy stalker every time she buys something. I imagine she feels it too.
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Still, the car is worse. The car knows more about you, the real you, than anyone else. In front of your boss, you suppress your temper. In front of your children, you avoid bad language. And in front of your partner, you restrain the urge to rearrange your testicles. Or bra. (In the spirit of inclusion, I’m trying to include a female version of rearranging your testicles, but I’m at a bit of a loss. Suggestions on a card, etc.)
But alone in our own car, it’s all on. Farting, nose-picking and constant groaning about the injustice of life. We snarl with contempt at the politician on the radio and mutter the most outrageous calumnies about our fellow citizens, many of whom have done nothing worse than be a little slow at taking off from the lights. People are hideous on social media, but it’s nothing on people alone in their cars.
And yet, up to now, we had a right to think, “Well, no harm done, it’s just between me and my car”. Now the news: your car is snitching on you. Nothing is secret. In one notorious breach, staff at Tesla were sharing photos of people being “intimate” in their vehicle, making use of the interior photos the cars were routinely sending to head office.
I’m sure my Hilux would not provide information this sordid to head office. Actually, the only intimate scenes that have occurred are of me securing the new dash mat in the parking lot of Supercheap Auto and then installing it in a way that can only be described as loving.
Meanwhile, my phone just dinged. Jocasta has bought a late afternoon cup of coffee. She’ll be so wired by the time I get home. Meanwhile, I’m heading home in the ute to buy a six-pack of beer.
Between the two of us, I’ll be paying cash. And hoping the car doesn’t tell on me.
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