Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul… you know the rest, right? If you don’t, find your high-school English teacher and ask for your money back. Ishmael had his berth on the Pequod, but I had a narrow-pitch seat on Southwest Airlines’ egalitarian 737, and my no-particular-purpose destination, chosen in a fit of pique and self-pity, was Los Angeles.

I had no purpose in my trip save for escape. I left no calling for this idle trade, no duty broken, no father disobeyed. In my haste to leave Ohio, I neglected to consider the fact that many of my Los Angeles friends would be missing due to the Chicago Auto Show; once that sunk through my head, I promptly stopped calling people and in doing so missed out on some friends who hadn’t gone to the show after all. Oh well.

At least I had a place to stay: the notorious dating blogger Melisa Mae had agreed to let me crash on her couch for a few days. That much, at least, I’d planned out. My flight arrived past ten on a Friday evening, and by the time I’d driven to Burbank and stocked up on vodka at the local Ralph’s it was way past midnight. Melisa met me at the gate to her house, nodded approvingly at the brown paper bags, then directed a considerably less cheerful glance at my $23/day rental. “That,” she pronounced, “is, like, the crappiest little car ever.”

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Another weekend has yielded yet another review of the new Ford Focus [this one from the NYT] that’s generally impressed with car but gives it huge negatives for its unruly, efficiency-tuned PowerShift dual-clutch transmission. TTAC’s been tracking PowerShift discontent since the transmission debuted in Europe three years ago, but America’s smoldering dislike of the dual-clutcher has only erupted into flames in recent months, when Consumer Reports, TrueDelta and JD Power all dinged Ford for PowerShift issues as well as MyFordTouch teething woes. And, in the teeth of mounting criticism of its dual-clutch transmission, WardsAuto reports that Ford has

sent dealers a memo with instructions to help sales and service personnel enlighten consumers about the behavioral nuances of the fuel-saving 6-speed automatic gearbox…

Although the Ford gearboxes perform as intended, customers relate the frequency and abruptness of gearshifts to their experiences with conventional automatic transmissions. Hence, a perceived problem, the auto maker says.

“What we really want to convey is their experience is something different,” [Fiesta brand manager Sherryl] Brightwell tells Ward’s, claiming there is nothing “wrong” with the car.

Because it’s not a transmission problem, it’s an enlightenment problem! Nothing to worry about Ma’am, it’s just a little bit grabby between the second and third chakras. Seriously though, TTAC wants to know what Ford thinks consumers need to know before they reach the seventh level of divine PowerShift acceptance. So don’t spin your Dharmic wheels, TTAC-reading Ford dealers… shoot us a copy [contact form here, anonymity guaranteed] and we’ll let TTAC’s Best and Brightest meditate on the problem as well as its proposed solution.