Our mini van adventures … dents along the way

Hey, wait a minute!  What are you doing to me?  Don’t do that it tickles!  Boy, that was cold water and now I can taste soap too.  What’s going on?   Oh, now that’s better – the warm air is drying me off and I feel so fresh and clean!

Why are you moving me to this spot on the parking lot?  I think you lost my owners along the way.  Where are the kids that sit in here that I keep comfortable as mom runs all over the countryside with them.  Sure there were times it wasn’t all that fun for me; like when Tommy dropped the cup of milk all over me. Or when Sarah dropped all the cheetos on me and they had to use that loud machine to clean me up.  But all in all the memories of those kids is pretty good.  Mom always made sure I have gas and get my check ups as well. She takes me to the place that washes and vacuums me too.  I love the feeling of being clean and sparkly.

I am a little confused right now though – there is a strange guy walking toward me with another man.  They kept opening and closing my doors and now they are in and driving me.  Where are we going?  Now we are back at the parking lot place.  Here comes a lady and she has a smile on her face and says, “Its green!”  So what’s wrong with that I wonder?  She looks at the man and says, “Any van, just not a green one.  Boy, God has a sense of humor!”   She gets in and drives me away.

I am introduced to 3 boys, Christopher, Jordan, and Tim and they are in here a lot as mom drives everywhere with them.  I have very fond memories of the boys and activities we did.

• Carried lots of boys (stinky boys I might add) back and forth to sporting events
• Went to Canada several times even towed the boat a couple of times
• Transported a couple of them to formal dances at school (some of my favorite times as I always got cleaned up for the event)
• Mom used me to take the daycare kids on field trips
• Grocery shopping was a favorite too – loved how I could handle all the groceries!

Then one day there was a different vehicle in the driveway. It was blue and looked like a truck.  Mom got out of it and was smiling and had some tears too.  She was so excited with the new blue truck.  I was confused and felt lonely.

I noticed that sometimes one of the boys would drive me around with some friends.  They really liked loud music and laughed a lot. Then one of the boys drove me all the time.  He took me to school everyday.  The first week something hit me on the tailgate and I had a dent.

Over the next few years I had several adventures all of which ended up with some sort of a dent or scratch.  Most of the time the driver didn’t know how it happened.

This past fall I had a scary adventure.  We stopped behind a big yellow school bus at a railroad crossing.  The bus started to move and my driver decided to go too. Oh no, I realized that we were going to hit the bus!  I was right crack, smack, and crunch! Ouch!  That hurt! My nose is all crunched and my hood will not open without prying it open with that big sharp tool and then to close it he has to slam it down hard.  That didn’t feel good either.

Just a little while ago we had another adventure.  It appears that my brakes weren’t working the right way and when he pulled into the family driveway I couldn’t stop.  You know it really hurts when you drive into a garage door and the side frame of the garage.  I broke my eye (headlight) and smashed the right side of my face pretty bad.  I heard the family talking about having to call an insurance company for an estimate to fix me up.  I was pretty excited just thinking about how good I was going to look.

Why is there a tow truck taking me away from my family?  They took me to another parking lot and some guy is poking at me and taking pictures.  I was sure it was so he would know the exact way to fix me up.  Then I heard him call my old mom and tell her that I was totaled.  Totaled?  What does that mean?  I waited and the car next to me told me it would be ok.  I was going to go to a place where they would recycle me and use me for another car.  I was a little scared at first and I miss my family, but I just keep remembering all the fun we have had.

So, now I am off to another adventure….