For the record I’ve never been a car snob. All I wanted for my 16th birthday was a red Jeep Wrangler with a soft top wrapped in a giant bow. I mean, was that too much to ask? The fancy girls drove Volkswagen Jetta’s in my town.  Instead, when I got my license, I received an old black Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme (IYKYK) low rider sans bow. I leaned into it and decked it out with fuzzy zebra seat covers and black fuzzy dice. All I really wanted was freedom from my seriously embarrassing family and some space to make out with da boys! Nobody made out with me in the Cutlass Supreme much to my disappointment, but if they had we would’ve been comfortable with those zebra seats cranked all the way back and a Boyz II Men CD on repeat. Then my mom really upped my pimp game (insert head shake here). She surprised me and put custom plates on that read HNA BNA 1. She said it stood for Hannah Banana which was a childhood nickname. JFC mom you did not just put that on my pimp mobile! Now I had to explain every day in the parking lot of my Catholic High school in Davenport, Iowa what my license plates stood for. My perceived cool factor plummeted further. Every time someone asked what the plates stood for I could feel my face flush. I was born a geek and I’ll die a geek.  Let’s just say there was definitely no making out  happening in HNA BNA 1. Thanks a lot mom!

My point is, I’m  generally a work with what you’ve got type of person. So did I have a fantasy of a mom mobile going into parenthood? Not really. The west LA standard mom SUV I see driving around is BMW, Audi, Alpha Romero, Porsche and Mercedes. I mean if someone gave me a Porsche SUV would I accept it? Definitely, and make it a creamy light gray please. I’m not above vanity.  But the more I got lost in the fantasy I felt like driving a higher end car meant more pressure to be put together in general. Could I really slob around in my elastic waist pants and old Disney T-shirts with my postpartum hair growing straight up out of my head like a feather tufted parrot and drive one of those? No, the Hannah driving the Porsche SUV will need a neutral manicure, beach waves everyday, maybe a blonde job, certainly more diamonds and pants with a legitimate button and fly. Maybe when the kids are older? IDK. Until I become Bravo’s next Real Housewife with full glam team, I would absolutely crumble under the pressure of owning a luxury SUV. So the Luxury SUV mom mobile  was OUT. Check.

When we had our first kid we got an awesome hybrid Toyota Highlander. I love that car. It drives with some muscle behind it and I like sitting up higher. It sips gas and it has a nice roomy trunk. That car would’ve been perfect for 2 kids. Having 3 kids put us over. We could squeeze a very small carseat into the tiny 3rd row but we would lose so much trunk space we’d barely be able to pack anything other than a stroller in back. Forget luggage, sand toys or my HomeGoods impulse buys. So our options were full sized SUV or minivan. Did I like the idea of a big sporty gas guzzling boat-truck? Well,  more than I liked the idea of the dopey minivan. So why did the minivan win? Because it’s practical as hell. I can easily load 3 kids in and out of carseats without lifting them up and in, jacking up my back. The recessed trunk makes for way easier double stroller or wonder wagon loading because you’re loading down and in, not up and back. It has a vacuum for the millions of puffs and tiny shreds of humanity that are thrown around the car daily.

And just like I leaned into my pimp mobile at 16, I’ve really leaned into minivan culture on the road. You will never find a driver filled with more rage/IDGAF attitude than a minivan driver. They don’t just roll through stop signs. They roll through stop signs while applying mascara, talking on the apple play hands free phone, and yelling at their kids all at the same time. These parents do it all. They are reaching behind them to pass STFU snacks while simultaneously dislocating their shoulder, driving and spilling coffee on themselves. They are operating a moving vehicle on minimal sleep and with crying so loud no volume level or amount of open windows will drown it out.  And they are headed to one of 3 places on a weekday: Coscto, the park, or the nearest coffee drive thru in hopes that consuming additional caffeine will brighten their souls enough for the day that they’ll appear partially human again. Minivan drivers are a danger to society and I like living on the edge.  I get in with my messy hair don’t care, could be Pajamas could be athleisure wear, topped off with an old beige belly support band (that got me through the last 2 kids but now the velcro doesn’t stick so well on one side) on the outside of my clothes, and I LEAN INTO the culture. These are my people cranking Dre’s Chronic album tooling around town while daydreaming about the time they did get a hot makeout session in a vehicle that didn’t have goldfish ground into its floors.

Do I still hate it that I drive a minivan in my half dead/half caffeinated soul? Yes, yes I do. I want to drive something I can put a surfboard on top that screams maybe there are kids in there or maybe just a surf Betty with her sporty dog on the way home from the beach. Maybe she’s stopping for an avocado toast or acai bowl before catching a flight to cliff jump among the waterfalls in Costa Rica. Age has nothing to do with cool factor. There are highs and lows of cool factor in life. I’m in a valley, not a crest and I’m acutely aware of my ranking at any moment. I suppose I’ll do what geriatric millenials do: I’ll add it to my vision board and blog about it instead.

My relationship with my Honda Odyssey is like Kat Stratford’s final poem in one of the greatest 90s teen angst films of all time: 10 Things I Hate About You.

I hate your dumb slow eco mode

and the way you’ve changed my mind

I hate you so much it makes me sick

It even makes me rhyme.

 

I hate the way that you take corners

and lack any pep at all

But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you

Not even close, not even a little bit

not even at all.