If my car is my castle, I live in a rabbit hutch.

Once again, Natalie Neff's being raked over the coals for her latest column on AutoWeek.com; the forum posters over there make The Car Lounge look tame by comparison. Her piece, a lighthearted bit advising her brother to evaluate prospective tenants by their cars, is being criticized for being irrelevant.

Point A: Perhaps, in the context of AutoWeek's usual content, this is true. That's why the story's on the web and not in the print issue.

Point B: The more pressing issue is that Neff's argument is entirely relevant. How often do we judge fellow motorists based on their vehicles, and how often are those assumptions correct? When my husband and I lived in Milwaukee, we spent a few hours at the laundromat every weekend, and passed the time by trying to match each laundromat patron with a car in the parking lot. Our track record was scarily accurate.

Bear with me, if you will, and check out the cars parked at the local Wal-Mart. Go inside, if you can stand it, and watch the customers. I will never be convinced that these cars, usually comprised of rusty Toyota minivans, early '90s Civics riding on cut springs and spinner hubcaps, and the famous periwinkle blue Plymouth Neon that shed paint in Frisbee-sized sheets, are not indicative of Wal-Mart consumers' average economic and physical health. Take a trip down the road to the closest Target, and bask in the brighter, cleaner, friendlier, and more pleasant atmosphere .

I know where I prefer to park my cars. How about you?

Such observations are, indeed, a part of automotive culture. The market research geniuses have known this for decades.

I'm judgmental

Let's discuss biases, shall we?

I have a mere 15-mile commute from work. It takes me an hour to get home, despite the fact that I sneak out of the office at 3:59 pm and am on the road at 4:05 at the absolute latest. When I arrive home, I park my car in the municipal garage attached to my apartment, which is shared with train commuters during the workweek. Those commuters are fighting to get down as I'm fighting to get up, and since I care about my car more than they care about theirs, I am usually the one to defer.

15 miles of stop-and-go, knowing it will end with this daily battle, puts me in something of a nasty mood from the start.

I am prone to road rage, but what concerns me is the road rage is highly dependent upon the type of vehicle involved. If I'm cut off by something "neutral" (say, a Jeep Cherokee) my yell is something along the lines of, "Get out of my way, bonehead." If I'm cut off by something more offensive, it becomes, "Get your effing ugly-ass Daewoo out of my way, you cheap, miserable, style-less son of a bitch."

Accurate, but still a cause for concern.

Commuting in Chicagoland's going to be the death of me.