Jack? We don't need no stinkin' jack!

This afternoon it was a beautiful day so I took Jax on a long walk around our neighborhood park.  As we walked on the far side a young lady approached me and asked if I knew how to change a tire.  Always willing to help a damsel in distress, I told her I would be happy to change it for her (and thought to myself I would also SHOW her how to do it herself in a dire emergency).

Under the floor in the back of her Toyota Prius I found the donut spare tire and the jack, a standard jack-screw type.

These are simply positioned under the hardened jacking point behind the front fender well (or ahead of the rear fender well) on level ground, and you turn the crank to raise the car.  Piece 'o cake!

Except on a Toyota Prius. 

There was no hardened jacking point where there normally should be.  It was just a mass of cheap plastic.  Putting my Man Card on the line, I asked to see her owners manual.  It showed there to be only one front jacking point, under what looked like an engine mount.  It was a good 1 1/2 ft back from the front bumper.  It was physically impossible to get the jack back there, then crank the handle to raise the car.  WTF?

With my manhood now in serious jeopardy, I decided to....shhh....read the instructions.  *gasp*   This is what it said:

Toyota, you idiots!  It didn't come with a FLOOR jack, but if it had, you're saying to NOT use it?  No Plan B, no "see next page"?  Nuthin'?  So what am I supposed to use for a jack then, huh?  And what was that useless jack-screw thing for?  

Her boyfriend and his buddy eventually arrived and had no more luck figuring it out than I did. I think those smarty pants Toyota engineers are sometimes too brainy for their own good....they might can tell you how to build a watch, but they don't know how to tell time.

You think this was some sort of Japanese passive aggressive revenge for that little atomic bomb thing back in '45? 

S