The Prius in a Pickup

My car needed body work, and I needed a replacement for the week. The rental manager handed me the keys and said it was the only one he had left, but it would be perfect for the coming snowstorm.

I took the keys and headed outside. I was floored. It was a lifted Ford F-150, a larger-than-life pickup truck. I nearly pulled my groin climbing into it.

I looked down from the driver’s seat and felt like a kid playing dress-up. It felt less like a vehicle and more like a costume for a character I wasn’t used to being.

Reactions at the community center where I worked ranged from laughter from my team to admiring shouts from the maintenance crew. I was surprised by how many strangers smiled or nodded when I rumbled past.

The winter storm began, and my Ralph Lauren peacoat didn’t match my new image, so I wore jeans, a baseball cap, old hiking boots, and a couple of thick sweatshirts when I went out. I loved the way I looked in the mirror. I looked like someone who belonged. I didn’t feel like my usual self, concerned with gas mileage and fashion. I was tougher now, someone who knew how to fix a roof or repair a leaky toilet. I had no idea how to do either of those things, but you wouldn’t know from looking at me.

I needed to get some groceries and supplies from Walmart before the storm got too bad. Cars were slipping all over the road, but I drove through it all, straight and steady. I saw a hatchback fishtail into a snowbank and I pulled over. “Need a hand?” I climbed down from my truck and helped him out.

Driving in the snow, I remembered winter when I was a kid, watching these huge guys in their snowplows. They were so big, the trucks and the men. I wondered if I would ever be like them. As I grew older, I stopped expecting that to happen.

Instead, I tried on other identities, and some fit better than others.

In graduate school, I didn’t feel as smart as the other students in my classes. I once said “para-didgim” in class and the room went quiet like somebody died.

“Pah-ruh-dime,” the professor said slowly, like he was sounding out a word for a child.

I wasn’t the brightest, but my undergrads liked me. Several even said I helped them overcome their fears of writing and public speaking.

Years later, in rabbinical school, I didn’t always feel at home either. All the other students knew every prayer, every ritual. I couldn’t keep it all straight. I once motioned for the congregation to sit down during a prayer literally called the Standing Prayer. Some sat, then stood, then sat again. It looked like Jewish Whac-A-Mole.

My congregants seemed to appreciate me, though. People often sought me out for spiritual guidance. Still, I felt like an imposter. I didn’t respond the first few times someone called me “rabbi.”

Later, when I was running a company, investors wanted to talk about COGS and burn rates. At cocktail parties with other founders, talk of net present value and cap tables made my eyes glaze over. I’d smile, nod, and excuse myself to the bar. I even wore quarter zips, but I don’t think they bought it. When I joined a group, the conversation drifted toward sports, travel, and family. When someone else walked up, it settled back to business.

I left Walmart and trudged through the snowy parking lot with my supplies, which I shoved in the back of the truck. I was a rugged man hauling essentials home through a snowstorm, the truck rumbling beneath me like everything was under control.

I tried to pull out of the lot but got stuck on the ice. My tires spun helplessly. I didn’t know what to do. It was snowing hard now. I was a regular-sized guy in an oversized truck.

A couple of younger guys in a rusty pickup pulled over to help. They were wearing normal winter coats and gloves while I was freezing in my grey Northwestern University sweatshirt. I think I might have put on a southern accent for no recognizable reason, like it came standard with the truck. “Y’all couldn’t come at a better time.”

They showed me how to place my floormats below the tires and how to rock the truck back and forth until I got out. I thanked them and drove home, embarrassed that I couldn’t get myself out of a Walmart parking lot.

The fantasy collapsed. I was a Prius, not a 4x4.

A Prius doesn’t roar. It doesn’t look powerful.

But it shows up.