How did I get here? Loving my no-so-mini van

Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads

I find myself a beautiful wife behind the wheel of a large automobile and I know how I got here. I love my mini van. I can't get over how much I love my mini van. I never, ever (until the last couple of months) have understood how people (my father) could get so much pleasure out of a car. I respect people who don't worship their cars.

Take for instance my friends Chris or Marianne. Chris drove a used Ford Taurus for quite a while without complaint. It worked; he got places. No need to fuss about it. Marianne once told me her dream car was one she didn't have to maintain. Reliability was the only criteria she had when choosing a car. Marianne and I both drove white Toyota Tercels at the time and taught in classrooms right next to each other. Hers was about 10 years older than mine and I would gaze on it thinking happily of the life with my Tercel that was yet to be lived.

My father, on the other hand, loves cars. Buying a car takes him months just because he likes to spend time in dealerships looking at his options, making friends with the dealers. He really does make friends with car dealers. Dad and Mom like small, European cars. He and my mother zip around, only in the summer months, in a little silver TT Roadster. I guess she lets her hair blow (hard to imagine), or perhaps she has it neatly tied in a scarf with Jackie O sunglasses. My dad must be a sight with the breeze blowing through his bushy eyebrows. He's taken me on rides in this car and it is kind of fun, but I just don't get it. My brother, my husband, my son, strangers on the street seems to really get a kick out of the car. The speed, the features, the leather seats. As five-year-old Sumner astutely put it last summer, although Papa couldn't find his way around a hammer or build Sumner a tree house, "He knows sports cars."

I just can't get into it. There has always been this divide between my father and me. I spent a childhood missing the best scenic views and rugged, wooded hikes on family vacations because it was too upsetting for my father to drive his car on a gravel road. My family did get a fair amount of hiking in and were late to most movies and ball games because my father insisted in parking in remote, protected parking spots so that he could minimize (eliminate) the number of opportunities other drivers had to open their doors and ding his car doors. It wasn't as if we needed to exercise as we were on strict eating-only-when-far-out-of-crumb-distance-from-car diet.

I should say I just couldn't get into it until now. I can empathize. Cars where things that got me places until my mini van. Cars were cars and anything bigger than an Accord were obnoxious until I got my mini van. By the grace of God and generosity of my in-laws, we are the proud owners of a new mini van and I just love it. I derive a great deal of pleasure from it.

First of all, you can walk around in a mini van. Walk Around. It is pretty much like adding another room onto your house. You can haul things, lots of things--as if you have a truck--and still drag your children with you when you do it. You can haul other children around with you: more than one, two or three. To drive one extra child home with me I used to have to fight three car seats in an impossible and awkward way just to get everyone safely home. Now they extra kids just climb in and WALK to a seat. It is wild stuff. Sometimes we drive another whole family with us. It is a party on wheels.

And did I mention the doors? They don't swing, they slide. Never again will I struggle not to ding the car next to me as I wrestle a child out of a car seat or cringe when Sumner taps someone else with his door. These doors lock and unlock with a cute little button on my key. The storage? Fan-tastic! We have an arsenal of toys and games that keep the children occupied and we still have room for a Kleenex box and baby wipes. There is even a trap door in the floor with a mini van mini basement. Finally, the cup holders, all 15. I admit, I scoffed at this number when I initially heard it, especially since 8 of the 15 are in the front row, but we have put them to use. On long trips it isn't bad to have a spot to put a water bottle, a cold drink and a small container of snack--not that I eat in the car.

So now, I find myself trolling for "safe" parking spaces where my sliding doors can be free from careless sedan drivers. My children know to wait until we are out of the car to ask for a snack. Ramona strictly enforces these rules with her carpooling buddies when they are in our car.

Becoming a mini van driver seems to be as important of a rite of passage as watching your first child's first soccer practice. After years of puzzling about why people get pleasure out of cars or why most of American mother drive giant boats when wagons would do, I get it. It makes perfect. It feels right. It is pleasurable. Really pleasurable. Mmm goood.