And Another One Bites The Dust

I drive a trusty ol' minivan. It's got it's years and miles on it, and it's clunking along so well. Although I am jinxing myself by saying this, we've not had any major problems with it and expect it'll last for a while yet. But it does have some history to it.

For instance, my children love to eat suckers in the van. And they also love that I don't climb in the back very often, so they can stick those sucker sticks right on in the itty-bitty speaker holes in the back. They must find it amusing when I see them and start fussing at them. I always say the same things:

Get those sucker sticks OUT OF THOSE HOLES!!

That is not a garbage can!

You will NEVER eat a sucker in this vehicle again. Ever!

I am in little hurry to get a new van. I just look around at the messes my kids inevitably make and think how much crazier I would be if I had to pay $30,000 for a van only to have them do this to it. Whenever I get the itching to go car shopping, I just go clean out my van, get disgusted and give up. At least they are junking up a paid off clunker!

With that said, my kids aren't the only ones who contribute to the vans junky-ness. We have never had a wreck in it, but man we sure like to bump each other's cars in the driveway with it. Oh, and there was the time Steven made me run into the house with it...He spent a whole week doing construction work after that one.

And in addition to our family, there is also nature and forces beyond our control. For instance, fairly shortly after we bought the van, we got stuck in a hail storm in Kentucky while at church. We never got that fixed.

And we are notorious for losing hubcaps. That doesn't sound like such a big deal to some of you, but this is a story I am not exaggerating. Serious.

Once, we left Fort Smith to drive to Baton Rouge. When we left, we had 4 wheel covers. When we got to Baton Rouge, we had one. My cousin came over to see me and he said, "Man, Laura, drivin' around like that, you look like you're from Arkansas."

And my dear ol' dad even took pity on me, when the time came around for my class reunion a few years back and we were missing two covers. He drove over to Hubcap Heaven and got me two matching covers so I wouldn't have to go to the reunion looking like an Arkansas hick. They didn't last long.

We have bought so many sets of covers. First we replaced them with the matching factory covers, which are like $40 apeice. If we only had to get one or two, that would be just fine. But the suckers keep falling off!

And we've tried different sets from Auto Zone and various other places. Most of them we took back when we promptly lost one, and amazingly, the stores let us!! We finally lucked up on the $12 set that Walmart sells. It lasts the longest.

We have learned to keep an extra set in the garage at all times. Just in case. Which has been very smart of us. So like last time I lost one, a woman who turned out to be a neighbor I hadn't met yet followed me home to tell me I had one fly off. She was very concerned that I would want to know where I lost it so I could go back and get it. I often wonder if she noticed how long it sat in that yard before the people finally mowed and threw it away.

So today, Steven drove home from church, only to pull in the driveway and see that we lost another one! I have seriously lost count. I think we're around number 14 or something like that. Meaning we've replaced 14 of these stupid things.

We also don't have anymore in the garage. So now I'm driving around looking all ghetto again. At least it's not a bird head poking out!!