The Audi Q7 Diesel

I don’t often test out big hulking S.U.V.’s, not because I believe that they’re grotesque and emblematic of everything that’s wrong with the auto industry, or because I already own a vintage, 38-year-old gas-guzzling proto-utility vehicle of my own, but because they’re generally not that fun to drive and thus don’t fit very well into my prissy/sporty aesthetic. They’re overweight where I prefer sinewy, wallowy where I prefer taut, and plodding where I prefer athletic. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be satisfying to drive, particularly when an appropriate need arises (or when you just want to compensate for feelings of emasculation/inadequacy). That need came up this week when our good friends from Chicago visited us upstate with their adorable one year-old. And by “need,” I mean transporting the landfill worth of apparel, accessories, accoutrements, and apparatuses people seem to think is necessary for the practice of contemporary parenting. It was amazing that they were able to fit all their shit on a commercial airliner. “If we’d brought even one more thing,” our friend said, as I helped him drag a pair of wheelbarrow-sized wheelie bags across the commuter rail parking lot, “we’d have had to hire a Sherpa.” But amazingly enough, the sea-gray Audi Q7 I’d borrowed for their visit was able to swallow their huge load with the esophagal avidity of one of the guys from Oral Exams 4.