David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Oct. 22, 2002

Minivans, while practical,
just aren't cool-amundo

The Fonz would never have driven a minivan.

Last week I surrendered my last bastion of Fonzie-esque cool in favor of ease and convenience. I now drive a minivan, and I haven't worn a leather jacket in years.

With one kid scampering about and another due in the winter, it's an easy trap to fall into. Our four-door sedan has racked up more than 143,000 miles. It still runs like a dream, but when we took it on long trips I was always wondered if this would be the time our luck ran out. Our other modus was a two-seater pickup truck. Sure, it had a couple of dinky jump seats in the "extended" cab, but they're too small for anything larger than a gallon of milk, and even the Mayfield's feels a little woozy after riding sideways for a few miles.

For a soon-to-be family of four, the sleek, black, shiny pickup truck had to go.

We bought the truck a few years ago when begetting was still a remote consideration. The wife and I thought we might have kids one day, but "one day" wasn't circled on the calendar just yet. We were living the DINK life and loving every minute of it -- weekend trips to visit distant friends, two or three (or four!) indulgent meals per weekend at the best eateries Knoxville has to offer, premiere movies at the theater whenever we wanted, and a snazzy two-seater pickup truck with no regard for wee Spateses in what would prove to be the not-too-distant future. Double-Income, No Kids -- we set new standards for DINKs.

In retrospect, I should have seen the minivan coming. Kids change things. Weekend trips to distant friends? Those are few and far between these days. In the pre-child era, sometimes we'd be halfway to, say, Cincinnati, before we'd even bother calling the friends we were going to visit. (They were DINKs, too.) Now, a weekend trip with just one child in tow requires more planning and preparation than the D-Day invasion. I expect the effort will increase exponentially with Baby No. 2. Multiple weekend trips to chic restaurants? Those were gone in a blink. A lingering dinner out these days means a stop at the indoor jungle gym. Premiere movies? I haven't been to the theater since the Star Wars flick came out in May. The upside is that my in-home movie collection has grown impressively, albeit many of the new additions are from Pixar and Disney.

And what of the cool pickup truck? It's been replaced by a totally uncool living room on wheels. Whatever sliver of coolness the pickup afforded me has been usurped by the need for enough space to accommodate one spouse, two children and practically every toy, diaper, ointment, cracker, juice and raisin in the house.

It's comes down to resource allocation. If we could afford to keep and maintain three cars, then perhaps the cool-looking pickup would have been spared. When you have offspring, cool gets bumped down the list. That's life. That's what all the people say.

Truth be told, I'm not sure how cool I was anyway. Even with the pickup, I was no Fonzie. I could never do that jukebox trick, and when I snapped my fingers the only female who ever came running was the cat. So perhaps the minivan isn't that drastic a change. Perhaps. I'd like to think I was somewhere between Ralph Malph and The Fonz. At least I wasn't a Potsie.

If buying the minivan wasn't bad enough, there's this added humiliation. Allow me to quote from my April 30 column: "This is a promise. The next time I'm negotiating with a car salesman over the price of my next vehicle, I will ask that the name of the dealership be removed from the trunk. If it cannot be done to my satisfaction, I'll ask for a discount. No discount? I walk. Hey, why not? It's MY car and MY money." Big talk, Potsie. Big talk.

In the heat of trying to wring every dollar off the final sales total, I completely forgot about the dealer's ad plastered on the trunk. I feel like I got a pretty good deal, but the dealer's name is irrevocably emblazoned on my nerdmobile. How's that for adding insult to injury? If you'd like to rub my phony nose in it, send your comments to Dave Spates, 124 Hypocrite Ln., Knoxville, TN.

And if you see me tooling around town in a minivan with more square footage than my freshman dorm room, feel free to point and laugh hysterically. It's cool with me.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.