So, what kind of car to buy? I am a big advocate of the station wagon – roomy enough for the lot of us and you can keep the dogs in the back away from the kid. However, Jason correctly points out that a station wagon is great until we need to go anywhere overnight – there will be insufficient space for all of us and all of the gear we need to take with us. It has to be a mini-van, he claims.

I agree and then I find myself completely repulsed by the idea of owning a mini-van. It’s not that I have a deep loathing for mini-vans. I have had many friends and family members who drive them. It’s just that when I imagine MYSELF as a mini-van owner that I freak out. I don’t want it sitting in my driveway. I don’t want to drive home to Maine every summer in a mini-van with Wisconsin plates. I don’t want to have to parallel park it but I refuse to start frequenting places with parking lots.

First I tried to offer reasonable arguments against the mini-van: gas mileage – hybrid not coming out until 2007; safety; difficulty parking – especially on our frequent trips to Chicago; and the fact that we are only going to run out of space on overnight trips and we could just get one of those roof containers for a station wagon. Jason has done a pretty good job shooting down my reasonable arguments. Next, I resorted to temper tantrums, sulking, and many other attempts at emotional blackmail and cajoling. “I can’t drive one of those!” I exclaimed in tears, “If I am going to start driving a mini-van to the dog-park and the grocery store [the only places we drive on a regular basis] I might as well drop out of my Ph.D. program and we can move to the suburbs, where I can start stockpiling lunchables, get involved in AYSO, and read Nora Roberts novels.” My partner remained strangely unmoved by my ranting and raving.

Finally, I thought I had the answer. “If I can find an international student who is graduating and leaving the country and selling their station wagon for a good price, we could buy the wagon and have it for the next year. Perhaps we could get by with a wagon until Toyota introduces the hybrid mini-van. Since we will get it for a steal, it won’t be such a big deal.” Jason agreed that buying a car from someone moving out of the U.S. tends to be the way to go (we’ve done it before).

So, this Sunday at church there was a notice on the bulletin board announcing the sale of a mini-van on account of the owners moving to Vancouver. We went to look at it. It is horrible but it is a deal. Today the mechanic gave it a clean bill of health. Shoot me. Shoot me now.

van-ola