It's a Miracle!

We have our minivan back from the body shop and it isn't even 2008 quite yet! We had a cruel false alarm Friday. They said it was ready, but when we went to go get it, the driver's window wouldn't roll back up and the taillights didn't work. But all's well that ends well.

In honor of this glorious occasion, I give you the following drivel:

An Ode to My Minivan
OR
Why I Hated Our Dodge Caravan Rental

Minivan,
My minivan,
I hated your kind at first.
Could you be any less stylish?
What other wheels could age me ten years in one day?
Or encourage insecure men in sports cars
To cut me off constantly?

Then I sat inside you,
I hauled my brood in you,
I fit everyone and their dog AND the kitchen sink in you
And I have grown to love you.
Reluctantly at first,
But more with each passing day.

I'm so glad
My husband
Wanted a minivan.
Some might say
A minivan is
Unmanly.
But I say
A minivan is
Not for
The miniman.
It says,
"I'm so virile
I need this huge car
To carry my offspring.
I just look at my woman,
And she gets pregnant.
Also,
I'm secure in my manhood."
A sports car or large truck says,
"My package is so small
And I'm so impotent
I have to compensate
With my car."

But then...
O minivan!
You were ripped from my life
By the passing whim
(Or maybe wham?)
Of a man too old to see
A moving 4,120 lb vehicle.
That should not happen,
Even if it is
A metallic shade of asphalt.

Time passed slowly as I fretted
Over your possible demise
And the lack of reaction time tests at the Department

of Motor Vehicles for persons over age 65.

The news that you would return to my life --
What joy and yet what fear!
Would you still be
The minivan I had grown to love?

Then there was
The rental.

Well, actually there were two.
The first was poopy gold colored.
But then it got sold
And they came and traded me
For a white one,
Which was a small plus.
But, I digress...

The rental.
It was Dodgy.
It sat seven,
Not eight.
Seven is one less
Than how many people
Were at our house over Christmas.
Two cars are not fun
When your husband has a tendency to get lost.
All the controls
Were cheesy
And counter-intuitive.
Thank goodness we didn't
Break them
(Or the toothpicks on a hinge
Posing as armrests)
Off.
The rear windows
Did not roll down.
Good thing there was no
Upchuck festival.
This car must have been made for some
Unfortunate race of squidgets.
No power adjusting seats can compensate
When the windshield was better aligned for
My boobs
Than my head.
I had a fabulous view of
The flipped up sun visors.
The third row
Required adults
To amputate
Their heads.
Don't even get me started
About steering column gear shifters.
I used to think I coveted
Power sliding doors.
No more.
In fact,
This deserves it's own stanza.

With power sliding doors,
There is no hurrying.
The door is too hard to open
Or close, for that matter,
All the way
By hand.
Always fighting
The power door's effort.
Woman versus
That beastly machine.
And me
Laboriously studying
The remote,
Trying to figure out which button was for which door?
Not a pretty picture.
Yet the car lacked the umph
To open both doors
Simultaneously.
So I spent untold
Impatient
Minutes
Waiting for the confounded door to finish opening,
Since I always pushed the button for the wrong side
First.
And heaven forbid you ever try
To fix a botched
Opening
Or closing.
It will always open
When you want it shut
Or shut
When you want it open.
And your husband will always
Push the button again
Just when you have actually managed
To get the thing going the right way for once.
Repeat
Ad nauseam.
And someone had the bright idea
To have the hazard lights go off
Every time you use the power door
And for about 45 minutes after
You thought the darn thing was done already!

I'd guess the turning radius was
About 39.4
Yards.

And every time
I turned at a speed
To exceed 12 mph,
The tires squealed.
And every time
I accelerated enough
To enter the flow of traffic,
The tires squealed.
And every time
My children tried
To be heard above the road noise,
They had to squeal.
And when today
I got my minivan back
To rid myself of the rental,
I squealed

With delight.