News From Joe in St. Joe, "It dunn't look good."

When Coulter was born, like, while we were in the hospital, I had an indescribable urge to get a van. It must have been hormonal thinking, because at the time I had a jeep and a jeep is plenty big enough for a 7 lb baby and his mother. But I wanted a van. I needed a van and I went out and I bought one. I met with the salesman. I negotiated. I call the owners of the dealership. I wrote them a check. I bought a van and I loved my van. Last summer I finished paying for my van. And then this week my van died. No loyalty. No thought or consideration that I was driving 75 (well maybe 79) miles per hour down the interstate. No thought or consideration that I was carrying a 2 year old to see her grandparents. No smoke. No leaking fluids. No fanfare. Just a loud revving sound that I barely heard because Emma Claire and I like our music loud. And then she was gone.

Cars, from the time I was 14, have meant freedom and over the past 24 years I've had 6 of them. When I turned 16 I drove a light blue Chevy Chevette with an "I love Gymnastics" bumper sticker that had an 8 track cassette player. I did not love gymnastics. When I graduated high school my parents gave me a black Ford Probe that had a stick shift and I thought it was awesome. Next, I drove the Miss Nebraska car. First, I crashed it in a parking lot. Second, I received a speeding ticket for going 75 in a 55 and third, I was pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving. This one I really can't explain except to say that I think someone wanted to play a little joke on Miss Nebraska. After they took that car away (evidently you don't get to keep it) my parents gave me my brother’s car. I'm thinking he had moved to D.C. and had no need for a car. This too was a great car. A Diamante. But, a couple years into it, it started to smoke. Billows and billows of smoke and exhaust to the point that you were basically a fire driving down the street. Next came the jeep and then the van.


And now my van is gone. I had planned to tell you the whole funny story. I had planned to tell you how we waited and waited and waited for AAA only to find out that the operator had sent the tow guy to the wrong interstate. I had planned to tell you that while we were waiting I got Emma Claire's DVD player out only to discover that the sound wasn't working and let me just say that Elmo doesn't make for a good silent movie. I had planned to tell you about the guy who picked us up and how he said I'd just need to hold Emma Claire in my lap (on the interstate!) because he didn't have room for a car seat. I had planned to tell you that while holding Emma Claire at the Honda place in her pajamas with no shoes and listening to some mechanic tell me that "It dunn't look good," some other guy was trying to sell me a new van. Really? Do I look that easy?



I had also planned to tell you about the Enterprise guy and how they really do come and pick you up. And about how the guy behind the counter wasn't going to take my credit card and how I lost it and then re-gained it and asked ever so politely that, given the circumstances perhaps he could show a little mercy. And I was for sure going to tell you about how they had no cars, save for this little go-cart looking thing that I wouldn't have carried a hamster in, much less my daughter, until I had what can only be described as a hot flash. I was talking with my husband on the phone and he wasn't making sense and I wasn't making sense and I was just trying to make a decision when all of a sudden my hoodie Had. To. Come. Off. It was so hot! In the moment, I forgot that I was only wearing a camisole underneath in anticipation for the outfit I was going to wear later. It was tight and was in no way appropriate as a standalone clothing article and yet, guess what? All of a sudden, as it just so happens, we've got a clean van that you can take. Now, not to toot my own horn, 'cause some men are pigs and it wouldn't have mattered in the least what I looked like, but I gotta say that after 38 years of gravity and more than 2 years of nursing babies, they are at least still facing in the right direction and 15 minutes later I was driving down the road in my souped-up van listening to Sirius radio.



I wanted to tell you this whole funny story but Joe from St. Joe (I'm not kidding) just called and as it turns out to fix my van; my van that has carried us safely for 6 years, my van that is full of cheerios and juice and diet coke and donuts (I hide them under the seat) will cost twice what my van is worth so now I'm too sad to tell you the whole funny story because I have to say goodbye to my van and hello to life as a one-vehicle family.



Life happens in our cars. I still remember "car time" with my parents when I was a child and I will remember always the memories that my van holds. I don't want to be too dramatic; it is after all, just a van, but it holds some pretty cherished memories as it has carried some pretty cherished munchkins. I'm grateful and I'm thankful and we are healthy and cars don't matter. Yes, I get all of this. But for me, cars mean freedom and the news from Joe in St. Joe, along with the fact that someone at the gym this morning asked me if I was pregnant (and I'm not) has just made me a little too grumpy to share the whole funny story.