Be Careful With "I Will Never..." Edicts

This post originally appeared on September 5, 2008. Since then, the minivan has moved on to greener pastures.

Have you ever said, "I will never __________________ (fill in the blank with appropriate activity) and then had to eat your words later?

Take the following, for example: You say, "I will never bungee jump." So one day, in the early fall, you're walking down the midway at the Tulsa State Fair, minding your own business, when the bungee cords literally sing out your name, begging you to strap them on, and then, before you know it, you're catapulting into the cosmos wondering what the hell just happened because you swore you'd never do what you've just done.

Sound familiar to you? Me, too.

When I was about 20, circa the late 1980s, minivans were all the rage. Every suburban housewife, it seemed, had the box-shaped Dodge Caravan or Chevrolet Safari. And each one I passed was literally stuffed to the gills with children, dogs, and the usual household bric-a-brac. And they had huge windows through which you could literally see everything inside of them, unless of course, you were fortunate enough to be driving behind the rare one with tinted windows. They reminded me of rolling aquariums without the water.

To my 20-year-old sensibilities, these eight-passenger contraptions were an abomination of the highest order and the most un-cool form of transportation since my Poppy's El Camino or my parents Chevrolet Impala station wagon.

One evening, as I was driving down the road with a college friend in tow, we came upon a minivan full of screaming, cavorting eight-year-olds fresh from a soccer game pressing their faces up against the glass at us in the most disgusting manner and urging us to honk the horn of my car by pumping their arms up and down in the universal sign language of cross-country truck drivers.

Here's how the conversation went from there:

Me: "Lord God Almighty, don't they equip those things with seatbelts?

Friend: "I wouldn't know. My Mom drives a BMW."

Me: "Let's speed up and get away from them."

Friend: "Good idea. The longer I watch, the more sorry I feel for that poor woman driving."

Me: "I wonder how many of those little monsters are hers?"

Friend: "Talk about birth control!"

Me: "God as my witness, I will never drive a minivan."

UH-OH...Fastforward to 2008. God must have a great sense of humor, because today, if you pass me on the streets of Claremore, you will be shocked and appalled to note that I am behind the wheel of...a minivan.

Yes, the very thing I eschewed, I now own.

The absurdity is not lost on me. Nor the fact that my minivan, though still boxy and utterly practical, has been styled to look like an SUV.

Two small favors I do take some solace in are: (1) my children are always seat-belted in, and (2) there are only two children in the van most of the time. There are still nose and mouthprints on the sideglass where my little cherubs make faces at the passersby. I'm positive the 20-something set pities me as I cruise by.

Irony is a cruel bitch.