Let me be perfectly clear: I have had quite enough of white cars. Yes—white cars. The bland, bleached, personality-deficient tin cans currently cluttering our streets like albino beetles with no sense of direction. Every morning, without fail, I am confronted by a parade of these rolling refrigerators, each one gleaming with the smug confidence of a household appliance that thinks it deserves road privileges.
We are told, by so-called experts, that white cars are “practical” and “reflect heat.” Well so does a mirror, but you don’t see people barreling down Main Street in a giant reflective disc, do you? (Though now that I’ve said it, someone will try.) And spare me the nonsense about resale value; white paint is not a financial strategy. It is an admission of defeat by people too timid to choose a color that requires emotional commitment.
Yesterday, I attempted to cross Wellington Avenue and was nearly clipped by four consecutive white sedans—each one indistinguishable from the last, as if mass-produced in a factory that exclusively employs disillusioned ghosts. One driver even had the audacity to wave at me, as though acknowledging my existence excused his vehicular beige-ness. I did not wave back. I am not in the business of enabling that kind of cowardice.
And do not get me started on the white SUVs. I have shoes with more character. These lumbering marshmallows take up two parking spaces, block visibility, and look like they’re forever on their way to apologize for something they didn’t have the spine to prevent. If a vehicle must dominate the road, the least it can do is do so in a color that doesn’t resemble a dental instrument.
People tell me, “Clarence, you’re overreacting.” No. I am underreacting. If anything, I’ve been too patient with the chromatically faint-hearted. For decades I’ve watched the palette of civic life drain from our streets, turning our city into a monochrome display of what I can only assume is collective aesthetic burnout.
In conclusion, if you must drive a white car, fine. But do not park it near me, drive it near me, or—ideally—own it near me. The city deserves better. I deserve better. Humanity deserves better.
