Dear Minivan Mommies,
Do NOT go gentle into that good night. Fight it. Rage against the temptation nay the spiritual castration that is the minivan. Sure they make them in secret agent squirrel charcoal and sleek Land Rover black. Ooh, they try to fool us into believing those minivans are cool. But remember your senses woman, a grocery getter, is the station wagon of the 70s, is the fast track to Loserville…population you and every other pajama jean wearing mother in the pick up line.
Sure my Mommy friends have tried to convince me that their minivan is cool. They pull up to stoplights all over suburbia and rev up their engine, taunting me beckoning me to race them. Their tricked out grocery getter van versus my sleek, sturdy, gas guzzling SUV. Any way you slice it ladies, no matter how tricked out your minivan may be…you my friend are no SUV.
I don’t care if it has a built in movie room, seating for 16, plush leather interior, a bed, a kitchen and a craft room. I don’t care if you can fit the entire football team and cheer squad in that bitch. I don’t even care if there’s a built in wine cooler and keg refrigerator for tailgating. I may have just lied to myself, a wine cooler and keg fridge could possibly cause me to take a second look. So what if you come with all the bells and whistles for less than the cost of my yearly Starbucks habit. I will not be seduced. Hell, your minivan’s baby changer/bather/breastfeeder combo and human butler do not impress me. I have standards.
You can’t look cool, singing the Wiggles and driving a small bus. You are not sexy with your pony tail blowing in the wind as your onstar directs you to the nearest Starbucks. I don’t give a flying rat’s ass what that creepy bald guy told you at the dealership. Tell him he can keep his pajama jeans, you don’t need them. You want a big SUV, with a lot of power so that you can show all the other soccer moms who’s really the boss and it ain’t Tony Danza. It’s the mom with the biggest tank and the most European vehicle.Keep in mind that SUV also comes in handy for running punk student drivers off the road, if the need should ever arise. I’m just saying.
I think Minivans should be outlawed. Every time I pull up behind one, I instinctively want to ram it in the rear.I loathe them. I look at the minivan and I see all the hopes and dreams of the women behind the wheel…crushed into dust as they soldier on, getting their groceries, taxing their children and having their spirit stolen from them. I see dead people where there used to be vibrant, independent women.
I know this is an irrational fear of a vehicle but I refuse to go gentle into that good night. I will fight it kicking and screaming. I will throw a full on two-year-old tantrum, I don’t care who stares with gaping mouth. I will rage against the minivan for as long as I can take breath into my chest and as long as I can fit my kids into my SUV. I am throwing down the gauntlet and vowing to you to never have more kids than I can fit into an SUV, no matter how you tart it up and prance it around in front of me.I will not fall for your sultry, vixen like ways. I will resist temptation. Are you pro minivan? Anti-minivan?
Are you a recent convert to the church of minivan?
**This post originally went live on October 11, 2011 but I have been looking at new vehicles and I needed the reminder to be strong because I’ve got to admit with 2 kids, that new Honda Odyssey minivan with the built-in vacuum cleaner “almost” made me a convert. I am afraid of what might happen if I actually test drove that minivan.