first world problems

I purchased my car used -- second-hand, pre-owned, whatever the current jargon is.  I feel very fortunate to be able to afford a car outright.  However, I didn't get input into some of the options I'd have had as a new car buyer: I didn't choose the paint color, the stereo (I removed the tape deck!), or the interior, which is black leather.  I guess it's moderately fancy to have a leather interior, as I mostly see it on luxury cars or the suped-up versions of commutermobiles, but (aside from any objections about the practice of hiding animals for upholstery purposes) I really don't see the benefit.  Parked in the sun, with the windows up, the interior temperature of a car can exceed 125°F within 20 minutes.  You guys, I have a great idea!  Let's cover all that interior surface with black cowhide!  That way, whoever climbs inside will be cooked en papillote.  Americans are too soft, anyway, with all of our sitting at office jobs and driving back and forth all the time.  We must toughen up our lazy butts...and the backs of our thighs, lower backs, palms, and anything else that should accidentally brush against that superheated cowhide.

Given, one remedy for this problem are the A/C controls (because what better way to solve a first-world problem than with a first-world solution!).  My commute is three miles long, which means that I'd have to turn on the engine and run the A/C for about as long as my entire commute before the seats cooled enough for my American ass to perch upon comfortably.  It hardly seems worth the time or fossil fuels.  Instead, I endeavor to park in the shade, leave open the sunroof (glad he sprang for that option!) and crack the windows...which, for some reason, always makes me paranoid that some malevolent pedestrian will toss a smoldering cigarette butt inside my car.  (This has never happened to me and I don't know why I obsess over the remote possibility that it will.)  Inevitably, though, that leather is searingly hot by the time I return, and I go back to wondering why one would opt for a black leather interior.  I should probably pick up some leather treatment goop at Kragen on my way home, too, because all that heat and sun is starting to crack the leather.