&#034The automobile changed our dress, manners, social customs, vacation habits, the shape of our cities, consumer purchasing patterns, common tastes, and position in intercourse.&#034 -John Keats

So I don&#039t remember if I mentioned this on the page or not (probably not), but I&#039m getting my parents&#039 old minivan. I don&#039t know the year or make or model or any of that fancy jargon, but I know it&#039s red, the kind of red that a black cherry candle is. So, wow, I might actually be driving more often now. I pretty much learned to drive in a minivan, that being the vehicle of choice for my mom for quite some time until she got her bright red (more like my dictionary&#039s cover red) Grand Prix thingie (a.k.a. the mid-life crisis car). So I&#039m not unused to driving a minivan; I&#039m just unused to driving much at all! Lushbaugh made me practice driving his car every weekend to the laundromat so that I would be accustomed to it before I was thrust behind the wheel for a six-hour stint on the way to Delaware, across Indiana and most of Ohio. The husband asks me to drive every once in a while when he&#039s tired or just when he gets the &#034Erin needs to drive more&#034 burr up his cute butt. I&#039ll probably just be using the van to drive to the store, the laundromat and probably across states because unlike Ian&#039s car, it doesn&#039t have bizarre transmission problems. I&#039ll be using it in August when I help Nick l&#039obsédé move from Lafayette to Muncie where he&#039ll be attending grad school for physics in the fall. Yup. I have a feeling I&#039ll be helping a lot of people move stuff with this new old vehicle &#039cause minivans are good at hauling stuff and people.

So why do I feel a little recalcitrant about this access to freedom? Well, I guess it&#039s because it&#039s a minivan. I&#039m not even 25, I don&#039t have any kids and the husband already has a car. It just seems so odd that I&#039d be driving a minivan around which I associate with moms with a handful of kids (i.e., my mom and my sister). <Shrug> I dunno. I&#039m sure no one will care that a young motherless non-yuppie like me will be driving a minivan around the Haute. Most people around here don&#039t seem to care about much of anything, so I suppose it doesn&#039t matter one way or the other. It is cool that I didn&#039t have to go searching all over for a vehicle, trying to weigh options and cost and reliability and all that. It&#039s cool that I really don&#039t have to pay much for it other than the repair costs and new tags and insurance. I mean, this really is a great deal. I wanted a truck, but this will work. I&#039m more used to driving minivans than trucks (which I&#039ve never driven that I can remember) anyway. So there&#039s the news. Yay me!

Posted: July 22, 2004 at oh shit I&#039m going to be late for work ten till eight.