Mini- Van Mega-Fun!

I wish I had coined that phrase.  It was on a tee shirt that a friend gave me.  She thought of me, you see, because I stubbornly drive a  2004 Toyota Sienna.  And yet, I think of myself as cool.  By the way, anytime someone thinks of themselves as cool, they automatically aren't.  Just saying.  

My friends drive SUV's, some of them are hybrids and some of them aren't.  It really does break down along party lines.  That's not the point here.  The point is that I live in a beach community close enough to mountains that people drive there on the weekends.  It is almost rational that people have SUVs for the snow.  Of course, an SUV is also a sign that you are sporty and ski, or are rich enough to afford to ski.  My little town is also close enough to LA ( ok all you stalkers out there- stop) to be near the very heart of cool.  Isn't that an oxymoron?  Heart of cool?  A heart is warm and red and messy, and cool is cold, usually blue, and very crisp.  And here I am driving a mini-van that isn't even leased and new and shiny.

I will tell you that driving a mini-van instantly adds ten pounds and ten years to your appearance.  In LA, of course, that combo is deadly.  I try to compensate by wearing cool sunglasses.  I still don't look like Jennifer Aniston.  And why do I want to ?  Why do I want the cute guys to look my way at the stoplight? I'm married.  Happily.  But still, I want them to know that I am listening to something really cool on my Ipod. Ipod!  I was an early adopter, cool thirty something guy.  

I think maybe it is ok to still want to be attractive to strangers, just not attracted to them.  Because I am dangerously close to the age where I look at thirty something men and think "Aren't they darling?" Which is much more a sign of menopause than hot flashes.  When you are able to flirt safely because they look at you as their mother's friend only,  it's time for the hormone replacement therapy.

Back to the mini-van.  In  an attempt to distinguish my taupe mini-van from the other taupe mini-vans in the parking lot (do you think they are attracted to each other?  That I might one day come out from Macy's and little, baby  taupe mini-vans will be parked alongside?), I have installed a hula girl on the dashboard.  I have adorned my back window with a variety of stickers.  Most of them are totally non-cool.  I do want the town to know the my family gave to the local Education Foundation, but it doesn't make the car cool, just identifiable.  

At some point, cool has ceased to be the goal.  I just want to find my car.  I just want to be with my family.  I just want someone else to clean my house.  Really.  I know that about myself now.  I hate to clean.  That wisdom and acceptance has come after 44 years of trying too hard.  That's what they mean by "youth is wasted on the young."  You know you are old when you understand that phrase.  And I am ok with that.  I can't guarantee that I will cease trying too hard.  I am eager by nature. 

So, I will put on my tee shirt and my cool glasses which really don't look that good on me, drive my kids in the carpool  and observe silently while they try too hard.  I will smirk knowing that I can't make them wise. I will grit my teeth as they listen to the lastest Flo-Rida song  (I mean "Right 'round was a bad song in the eighties).  I will park my car in the Target lot, and later be able to find it amongst the sea of SUV's.  And I will have found my cool, after forty years of trying too hard.

Comments

[Kathy Sena]

Amy, I thought I was the only non-SUV-driving mom in L.A. County! I think going your own way — with confidence — is cool. And no matter what you do, your kids will still say you're embarrassing them. So I say go for it -- sunglasses, iPod and all!

[Pat]

Amy, the only thing that ever made me remotely cool was that I had the same mini-van as you. That meant that, occasionally, someone in town would mistake me for you and wave. Made my day every time. Now where exactly did you get those sunglasses?

[Amy Howorth]

I don't know, I don't think I'm very popular these days.... the glasses are ray-ban aviators....Thanks for reading!