Ode to the Minivan

There is nothing more de-masculinizing than driving a minivan. And a load of kids in the back only makes it worse. The fact that I can still look as sexy and hot as I do driving a minivan, flinging my head every thirty seconds to yell and swear at my kids, is proof of just how sexy I really am.

I never started swearing at my kids until my wife made us drive a minivan. That’s what minivans do. They turn gentle, soothing-voiced men into foul-mouthed devils. One moment you’re talking serenely to your wife in the captain’s chair next to you, planning a summer vacation, perhaps, or just a getaway for the two of you, your hand on her knee (or is it her hand on your knee?); the next moment you’re swearing like a chicken farmer who just got the feed truck stuck in a giant mound of bird turd, demanding-begging-yelling at the children to stop whatever—and there’s no other word for it—shit they’re involved in. 

Because going sixty, seventy, eighty miles an hour on the freeway there’s nothing you can do but swear. The little darlings are completely out of your reach, and they know it. Who’s going to stop them from spitting and wiping boogers on each other, on the seats, on the windows? Not you. Not you.

You can threaten to pull over. You can name the consequences that will take place once the family’s home. Only they know it’s a load of crap. No one’s pulling over. And what would you do if you did pull over? Turn and yell some more? That’s the de-masculinizing configuration of the minivan, of the family car in general, I suppose.

So with the Battle of Armageddon heating up in the rows behind you, your only option is to somehow beef up your language. You throw a little “hell” in there for effect. You progress to “damn.” But one or two damns into it and you might as well be screaming “fooey.” No one’s scared, and no one’s listening.

Meanwhile the crying and hair pulling and spitting and booger wiping goes on. In fact, it intensifies. And the children are beginning to defend themselves. Your ten year old daughter has turned sideways, is kicking her four year old brother in the head, with the backs of her heels: the boy’s head is ricocheting back and forth off the window like a ping pong ball. Her heels, his head. You see it in the rear-view mirror.

But in the end, not even “shit” or “sons of bitches” gets anybody’s attention. Nor does such language release the extreme pressure building up inside you—

Impotent rage, that’s what I’m talking about here. The de-masculinization of America—thanks, in part, to having to drive minivans. Fortunately, I have the looks and sex appeal to pull it off, even in a minivan, even swearing at my children. But I feel for my brethren.