Captain’s Chair #1: Never Say Never

It has been said that life is nothing more than a continual learning experience.  I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes in this life, but in general I have no regrets for the way things have turned out for me.  Becoming a father just over seven months ago has changed my perspective on what is important.  In my first feature topic that will hopefully become a regular post here on RMDM I will explore and reflect on the things I have learned from my “Captain’s Chair”.

Today’s lesson: Never say never.

I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the bumper sticker that said “I used to be cool” affixed to a dark grey minivan that looked almost exactly like the one I now find parked in my driveway.  Now, while I have never been cool, if you told me a few months ago that I would consider altering the family transportation dynamic after only one short trip with our infant I certainly would have looked at you funny.

The reality is I have what you could call a car problem.  In the seventeen plus years that I’ve held a license to operate a motor vehicle I have owned seven different cars.  Not a terribly crazy number, but still it is the consistent wanderlust and buyer’s remorse I tend to feel weeks, and sometime days, after bringing home a new ride.  After all I’m the one that took a friend to pick up his car from getting serviced and left the dealership in a brand new, fully loaded Ford F-150 for no other apparent reason than I wanted one.  I got a sweet deal on the truck and zero percent financing, but would wind up dumping it 13 months later when gas prices began to escalate.  I know what you’re thinking a vehicle as an impulse buy?  Yes, and now you understand the extent of my problem.

In any event I settled on a solid, fuel efficient Honda after casually discarding the truck I had craved since my careless teenage years.  Things were going along great.  My wife’s car was paid for and we were rapidly attacking the balance on the note on mine.  With a baby on the way I figured in less than two years time we would be free of a car payment and able to apply that newfound cash flow to his college fund.  And then reality hit. 

The baby arrived to much fanfare and for the first several weeks of our little man’s life we ventured out as a family only for doctors appointments.  A few weeks later we would make our first trip of any consequence and a sudden, painful realization hit me – our cars were too small.

I began the new vehicle search in earnest and decided early on that a big SUV was out of the question.  So, what to buy then?  A bigger car, a station wagon?  Repressing my inner Griswold I decided against a “family truckster” and resigned myself to the fact that we could soon own a minivan.  Now, plenty of friends of mine have minivans, but there is one significant difference – they aren’t the ones that drive them.

My wife isn’t a fan of big cars, and we still owed money on mine, so it was obvious from the onset that the oft maligned minivan would belong to me.  After selling my Honda on Craigslist in less than eight hours we narrowed our choices for the new ride and started the process of test driving and negotiating.  A few days later we would walk out the door of a dealership with the keys to a dark grey minivan in our hands.  And so, something I swore that would never happen did indeed happen and became, for me anyway, a powerful lesson in how you can never truly say never.

At the time I told myself that I had to capitulate my manhood for the betterment of my family, but my dirty little secret is that I actually like driving it.  Now, I may refer to it as the “suburban assault vehicle” and tease my wife that one day she will come home and it will have flames painted on it, but it is actually pretty enjoyable to drive.  The adjustment from my car has made me a better driver, but no matter what I drive you’ll still find me going all Neil Peart on my steering wheel to “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” as I zip around town knocking out the errands.