I took this photo of SMART and a group of PODpeople in Durham, NC. I can tell that they are all obviously Dukies, because they do not look Preppy enough to be Tar Heels. They swarmed around SMART no sooner than he had dropped his rear hatch looking for a pillow. One was on a motorcycle, two came out of a pickup truck, and one from a electrical contractor’s truck. Perhaps because I was distracted by all of the tattoos on the contractor, I did not see where the last PODperson came from.
I must admit that this group of fans came up with some incredible questions of SMART and myself, including:
- Do you always sleep in a POD?
- Do you bring him in the house at night?
- Can you fit in a sleeping bag?
- Can that little thing have children?
- Did you find it under a Christmas Tree?
Anyhow, SMART had pulled off the road saying that we was fatigued from a long day of driving. We had gone to Raleigh early that morning to do a photo shoot in Kroger #305 in North Raleigh. SMART and I were working on a Kroger Manager Wine Training Program and we wanted to set some shots of an actual store set. You can see the tripods and lights in SMART’s generously sized luggage area. Kelly, The Wine Consultant at #305, thought that SMART was adorable. He took some great phots of the German and French wine segments.
After about 30 minutes of kibitzing I could see that SMART was really was tired. How ironic that we had stopped a POD Hotel. When all of the PODpeople had gone their way, I said good night to SMART, and I went across the street to the get a room at a Hampton Inn. SMART plucked a couple of golden dollars into the ‘pay-as-you-sleep’ slot in the POD and retired for the evening. (The POD Hotel is the only place that SMART will sleep.)
I forgot to mention that the individuals pictured above are called PODpeople, not because they stay at POD Hotels, but rather because they are insane, fanatical, tripped out believers in SMART Cars, and especially nanoPOD, who you all know simply as SMART.
