The Mini Van

The Mini Van

(dum-dum-dum)

Practical.  Convenient.  Genius.

A sign of aging.

"You're no longer cool".

And proof that you're all grown up.

(sometimes the last one stings the most)

I am a mini van mom.  There's no denying it.  And although some hate to admit it, it is by far the easiest way to transport little people....hands down!  And what is my fav part about my practical and not so stylish transportation?  The automatic sliding doors.  Much like the above picture, minus the Knight Rider theme, my van has magical doors.  Truly magical. 

CJ and I went to lunch the other day.  We parallel parked on Main Street.  Yup.  Parallel.  I've still got it after all these years.  Mr. Thompson would be proud.  It was lunchtime so of course traffic was bustling, so much, in fact, that I considered avoiding the fearsome parallel.  But I braved on.  Ticked off drivers waited patiently for my signal, then my parallel preparation, then backing, then turning, then straightening, (blah, blah, blah) and before long, CJ and I were on our way.

After leaving the restaurant, CJ and I made a quick stop at the music store.  The second floor of the music store has an incredible toy loft.  We couldn't not stop to be dazzled by that.  So upstairs we went.  We inspected the Thomas the Train pieces, took note of the Caldecott book display, and played with a handful of  giant plastic lizards.  But this fun must soon end, so downstairs we went and back onto the street. Our trip to town was nearing an end.  As we walked toward our van I noticed something was awry.  Hmmmmm....what's wrong with this picture?  Why is the door wide open?  And how long  has it been like that?  Am I a victim of crime?  My husband is gonna freak out.  But this is gonna make a really good blog post.

Rewind.

Because we had parked on Main Street, I told CJ to exit the car on the sidewalk side.  He pushed the magical button to open the door as I got out of the van on the opposite side.  I pushed my "lock" button and down the sidewalk we skipped to our lunch date.  And that is where we went wrong.  The door was left open.  (I'm having flashbacks of Monsters Inc.)  The automatic door button was pushed once, but not twice. 

A couple of positives that we can glean from this experience are:

1- I didn't leave my purse in the car.

2- It wasn't snowing or raining that day.  Bonus.

3- We live where we live.

My husband just learned of this experience last night.  Let me enforce that he was less than impressed with my parenting/grown-up skills.  In fact, he said something to the effect of, "it's amazing that you and your sisters have survived as long as you have".  I don't know why he's gotta drag my sisters into this, but, whatever.  I'm just happy to report that the automatic sliding doors, despite my recent oversight, are still, and will forever be, the best part of a mini van.

Now, back to the idea of combining Knight Rider and the mini van.  I think I'm onto something.