There’s something about buying a used minivan that makes your shoulders slump down. Maybe it’s because minivans are never “lightly used”. It’s like buying a donkey and expecting it to be sprightly and have a straight back. These things are made for carrying children who often treat vehicles like roofed playhouses, spraying food and dirt in all directions and scratching and staining every surface in reach. Even with meticulous cleaning the used, excuse me, pre-owned, minivans we’ve been looking at put me in mind of what the velociraptor transport cage must’ve looked like in the beginning of Jurassic Park. And maybe it’s the dated styling of the vehicles we’ve been looking at but this whole process feels like buying somebody else’s worn-out car. It’s the vehicle purchasing equivalent of using a public toilet and finding the seat still warm. Just…ugh.
My wife, as practical as she is, said she doesn’t feel any emotion about the used minivans we’ve looked at and I agree with her. If you’re going to make the second largest purchase of your life, behind the house, you should at least be excited about what you’re buying. Would you rather get a gourmet meal at a French restaurant or a fifty-pound bag of generic Human Kibble? I know we’re willing to forgo a lot of style and coolness with a minivan but isn’t there anything to get excited about out there? Some kind of shuttle that can move eight people and also have some character, some angular style, some gravitas? What I really want is this:
Writer, architect, father, husband.
The shuttle is the way to go. The used minivan is definitely not going to get us all the way to Endor.
How can I be logged in and still come up as anonymous?
“Minivan Tydirium, what is your cargo and destination?”
“Children and Bothens for the salt mines of Tattoine.”
“You may proceed.”