I happened to mention to a few friends that our family had acquired a new vehicle, and one, who is a bit farther into middle age than I and who makes his living as an Analyst, posed an inquiry.
A mini-van or an SUV? Welcome to America!
I, attempting to clarify, replied with a link to my previous weblog entry, complete with photo:
It’s a van van. https://www.tovis.com/weblog/?p=1153
He replied with some Analysis. Trying to be helpful and explanatory, of course.
Nice ride. And Dude, it’s a mini-van. A mini-van has unibody construction, front wheel drive, coil springs, an automatic transmission, a “family” seating configuration and, usually, a V6 engine between 2.5 and 4.0 L. A van is really a truck. It has body on frame construction, rear wheel drive, often leaf springs in the back, and various seating, transmission, and engine configurations based on application. If I bought a mini-van, it would be like yours and it would still be a mini-van.
Well, you see, my lovely wife, my better and prettier half, Julita, light of my life, fire of my loins, does not like minivans. She has no truck, if I may be so bold, with minivans. She despises them. They call out to her, but she scorns them, declaiming her Kahlil Gibran, who once wrote:
[The minivan] stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
So of course, I, being a truthful and honest and communicative husband, forwarded The Analyst’s message on to my wife, saying, yea verily:
These are the people I call my friends.
She set me straight:
That man is NOT your friend.
I, being one to protect my friends, and also my NOT-friends, because I do so love them all, forwarded her correction to The Analyst, with the following preface:
For future reference. Best not to use the “M” word around the wife if you value your intact body.
The Analyst, for his part, cut out the middle-man (your humble scribe) and replied to both of us with a rambling message about a medicated woman, a spade, a Subaru, and something called a “Johnson unit” (I didn’t ask).
I used to work with a woman who got very upset when I called her Subaru a station-wagon. After a stay in the Johnson unit and a long battle to stabilize her meds, she’s back at work and feeling fine.
Anyway, welcome to middle age. Denial of conformity is an important part of feeling that one, and one’s family, is “special.” So its not a mini-van. It is a special vehicle for special, gifted non-conformist people.
[T.A.]
P.S. In my professional life, I’ve had countless run-ins with people who got pissed at me for calling a spade a spade. The trick, as in the present case, is to have unarguable data.
I think this chapter is complete, but I still say he should keep his mouth shut around the loin-firer.
Dude,
where’s my mini-van!?
Also, for reference, I do seem to recall a similiar conversation at work.
You guys went to Princeton, right? So you know about WWII? I ask because at a recent Hash gathering, I mentioned something about “the second great war†and received blank stares followed by a hesitant “That’s like history, dude.†Yes it is and I’m afraid that my father is a historian who lived through WWII so I’m a victim of knowledge.
Why do I mention this? It is really quite germane. You see, given Germany’s behavior during the second great war (and, for that matter, the first) it has always been a mystery to me why German cars became symbols of peace, love, dropping out, turning on, tuning in, and all things counterculture. After extensive research, I believe that I have found an answer. Two pioneering MIT graduates have advanced the hypotheses that VW vans and bugs became symbols of the counterculture because they were not really cars. Members of the counterculture, after experimenting with motor scooters and finding them wanting, found the closest thing on four wheels and, willfully ignoring the holocaust, embraced vehicles with no power, acceleration, crash protection, or heat (One of the transcendent memories of my youth is shivering wrapped in filthy blankets in the sub-zero New Hampshire winter in the back of my parents VW van) (the heater boxes had failed again).
An apparent crisis loomed when the manufacturer of these vehicles became middle-aged and conservative and began making real cars and mini-vans. However, the counterculture had also grown older and more conservative and its members, having ignored the holocaust, found it no great trick to embrace cars and mini-vans that were little different from those offered by mainstream manufacturers. And here we are. Doesn’t it feel special to be a piece of history?
Hey old man, are you going to smoke that whole thing, or are you going to pass it around?
You know who the two “researchers” are, right? If not, think MIT, cars and lack of reverence.
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