As many of you know, I am one of the pastors of a church that is primarily made up of people thirty years old and younger. Â As such, I get to be around a ton of single people and young married people, most of which do not have kids.
That last part is really key.
I get razzed quite a bit for a few things in [nlcf]. Â I get razzed because I am functionally bald, because I am turning the corner on forty and primarily because for the last eight or nine years, I have driven a minivan. Â Three of them to be exact. Â Now I claim that our new Mazda 5 isn’t really a minivan – I mean, it was driven by a bad guy in 24! Â But no one is buying it…
So, being the mature adult I am, I tease back and tell them that while my minivan days are on the wain, theirs haven’t even begun yet. Â This is when I inevitably hear the mantra… We won’t drive one of those, we will get an SUV.
Now, realize this, I am around A LOT of people that go through the early married years transition to the been married a bit longer and now have a few kids phase. Â Off the top of my head I can only think of ONE family that has stayed the We’re going to get an SUV course. Â Ryan and Lisa Hartsook, you get the prize.
Most couples follow this trajectory…
I will never have a minivan
Hmm… that is kind of a sweet looking minivan
Wow, you mean you fit the stroller, the playpen (excuse me, play garden as they are now sometimes called – say what you will, it has sides, it’s a pen), the booster seats and some toys back there?
Then the final step… you mean they can’t reach each other to fight?
When that happens, hang your heads cool people, cause a minivan is coming for you!
I have recently been razzing another [nlcf] staff couple who live two doors down from us, Steve and Amy Englund. Â They absolutely deny they will EVER own one.
I am not buying it.
My point in this whole rant is that, in six to ten years, this will be the Englunds. Â Mark your calendars. Â Steve and Amy, start saving up for your own personal Swagger Wagon…
We rock the SE not the SUV…
Bill Woodward said...
1“No, seriously honey, where are the kids?”
I do hope to get past the minivan phase at some point, but if you have to tote four kids and a bunch of stuff, you can’t beat them.
Besides, we get to look down on the people who drive station wagons.
05/17/10 10:11 AM | Comment Link
Cox said...
2Pretty sure I’m immune to the wiles of the ‘swagger wagon’.
No, seriously.
05/17/10 11:31 AM | Comment Link
said...
3we shall see my friend… we shall see
05/17/10 1:18 PM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
4have you seen that commercial….same idea…that says something like “don’t worry- one of the most manly things you can do is drive a van full of 5 of your offspring.” HA! love it.
05/17/10 1:31 PM | Comment Link
said...
5Jim…. ohhhhhh Jimmy P. I will even say this on the intertubes:
Amy and I will never have a minivan.
We’re just not minivan people. Nothing against people who are, they’re just not for us. They don’t suit our lifestyle (which won’t change once we have kids). Yeah, yeah, yeah – things will get a little crazier, we’ll have slightly less time to do things WE want to do, but we’ll still be rocking the SUV. We just can’t go places we like to go without a 4×4.
At least your minivan is a sport-minivan. I’ll give you extra points for being sporty. Good-day.
05/17/10 1:32 PM | Comment Link
Joe said...
6Steve,
Just out of curiosity, if someone offered a free decent minivan to you, your wife, and your future 2.3 kids, would you take it? Of course it would be disrespectful to turn around and sell it to try to buy a more expensive SUV. Or would you say, “No thanks, that’s just not my style.”
05/17/10 1:37 PM | Comment Link
said...
7It’s bad enough that I have a small hitch-haul for my jeep where we put our deer after a successful hunt – bad in the sense of the funny looks people give around town. I couldn’t imagine hanging a deer from a bike rack from the back of a minivan (free or not!). That just wouldn’t be my style:)
05/17/10 2:18 PM | Comment Link
Rob said...
8Hillarious video… only had to stop once and run upstairs and flip the rolling baby back over…
Hate to suggest “what the government might do” but if gas taxes could go up, I’d be looking for more fuel efficiency and if the mini-van does it, then I might switch off the SUV at some point.
Right now, the SUV gets driven rarely though so it’s not bad… and it does transport the lawn mower and 2x4s around pretty well.
05/18/10 5:01 AM | Comment Link
Dave said...
9Steve, srsly. Throw some plastic in that stow’n’go, drop some bag ice down, and haul deerz in it. I’ll meet you with the BBQ sauce.
The only reason I don’t have a minivan today is because I’m too cheap to buy ANYTHING and can’t talk my mom into giving me hers–it has a spoiler and mag wheelz.
Plus, I’m no slave to fashion and neither is the balding dad in the video (you and I are on our way to join Jim and that guy at which time our car will not be able to bring us virility anyway). A van is a machine that carries families and their crap, NOBODY CARES, the stigma is an illusion, simply mud slung by SUV and truck manufacturers frolicking about “on closed courses” with “professional drivers”.
(p.s. Jim, were you trying to make a pun with wain/wane? On horse-drawn cart vs. on the decline? Very nice.)
05/18/10 8:20 PM | Comment Link
said...
10Hillarious video… only had to stop once and run upstairs and flip the rolling baby back over…
Hate to suggest “what the government might do” but if gas taxes could go up, I’d be looking for more fuel efficiency and if the mini-van does it, then I might switch off the SUV at some point.
Right now, the SUV gets driven rarely though so it’s not bad… and it does transport the lawn mower and 2x4s around pretty well.
05/19/10 11:13 AM | Comment Link
Kati said...
11Wow, all these comments make me feel like a real loser. Not only do I want a mini van at some point, but we currently own a station wagon. It’s a Subaru Outback, which if I do say so myself, is the coolest station wagon out there! But some day when the girls are at VT I’m going to trade the mini van in for a real mini, a mini cooper that is!
05/19/10 7:30 PM | Comment Link
Mike said...
12As an owner of a “Swagger-Waggon,” I can tell you there is nothing sweeter than drivin’ down the road, windows open (not those lame old mini-van windows that crack… I mean windows that actually go DOWN!!!) and jammin’ to some “Imagination Movers” or “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” or “I am a pizza!” (We try to avoid the Barney though… he’s like so ’90s!!!)
05/21/10 7:24 PM | Comment Link
said...
13nice catch my friend. missed seeing you all on friday. have a great anniversary!
05/25/10 12:43 PM | Comment Link
said...
14great to see you in the RIC! really good to see how well you are walking through life. congrats.
05/25/10 12:44 PM | Comment Link
said...
15all in good time kati… all in good time…
05/25/10 12:45 PM | Comment Link
K.C. said...
16This is amazing.
05/25/10 2:24 PM | Comment Link
said...
17Mike – Your comment makes me want a mini-van even less.
My little brother knew all the words to “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” at Benjamin’s age. Not sayin’ I’ll let my kids know all the lyrics to stuff like that, but “I’m a pizza”? Really?
05/25/10 3:36 PM | Comment Link