This is one morning I was glad to have awakened early…why?  Well because I had a note stuck to my door saying 'before you go off, please wake me up for F150 instructions'. This is probably the first car I knew which actually came with my own private tutor. I thought to myself…could I really need this? Maybe I could just escape without my brother even knowing. To my dismay, the key wasn't in the cabinet, so I had to wake my brother up just for him to lecture me on the workings of an all-American truck.

When my brother and I went down, I was actually awestruck by the size of this truck!  Compared to the adjacent Galant, this thing is huge!  It took up most of the garage space even though I actually made more room than necessary the night before.

Generally, I have nothing against big trucks.  The only thing that sucked was that this thing didn't have a practical invention called a 'trunk'.  This is perhaps the first vehicle I had to be contented with putting my things at the rear jump seats.  Climbing on board this barge, and starting her up, I quickly noticed a similarity between the F150 and FUSO engines (could they be long lost brothers?)  Having remembered to latch the hand-released (ala Mercedes) parking brake and how to operate the column shifter, I went out just in time to scare the living daylights out of a neighbor.  He was probably just as dumbstruck as I was when I noticed the F150's uncar-like behavior. The F150 generally danced around and steered though corners just like a huge tour bus.  The only sound missing was the latter's airbrakes. 

One thing I hated about this test vehicle is that it isn't tinted.  In effect, I find it disturbing to see people actually gawking at you just because you drive an F150.  It's even harder when you actually see truck drivers eye-level for the first time. I don't know whether to laugh at myself or just try to hide (partly in shame for depleting our gas resources quickly).

When I reached Ateneo, I was lucky to get a parking space wherein the rear is plotted with grass.  Hallelujah I thought, at least this thing would be easy to park today…or so I thought.  After going to for lunch and having laughs at how big the F150 is, I went back to the parking lot just to find out that it's full to the brim. When I was just about to give up, I saw an opening parallel to a Toyota Corona and Corolla.  I parked and adjusted the vehicle to make sure that the cabin is well in-between these two.  However, when I went down, I was actually surprised that this truck took up the size of the whole Corona plus a fourth of the Corolla! It's $*%$# huge! I was laughing inside and more so when an F150 Lariat decided to park beside me.

Bringing it back home, the ride was rather uneventful sans for the ever-present gawkers. Garaging the F150 is a different experience altogether because I required assistance from my brother. It's not the vehicle's width that was the problem but it's length. Being much longer than 5 meters, we could have bumped the pick-up especially when you can't see whole pick-up bed. The rear-wheel drive made it no easier either because in backing up the truck, the weight transfers to the front tires and the rear tires easily lose their grip.

Cleaning the F150 is also a tedious job. If a normal sedan would take around 30 minutes to clean, the huge F150 took a full hour and a lot of water (again, it this truck depletes our natural resources quickly!)

Wednesday Night / Ulysses

Since it's close to Chinese New Year, my brother and I decided to deliver Chinese tikoy using the F150. Because of the truck's high eye height, the F150 has excellent visibility over a normal car. In fact, the range of vision is so far that it's easy to predict the best lane / best way to get to the destination. The F150 lamps are adequate providing great night vision at the expense of blinding the car directly in front of you. 

After delivering the tikoy, we decided to bring the F150 to Starbucks Katipunan for a short photo shoot and some Frappuccino. Unfortunately, we found the F150 a rock to park (not piece of cake) especially given that the parking space for the Starbucks coffee bar is too darn small. So, without getting our fill of Frappuccino, but getting some good photos, we headed back home.