A little swagger

I know a thing or two about cars. Literally a thing or two, but a titch more than “you turn the key and go”. During my single days I was even known to change my own oil and watch very closely as a friend gapped my spark plugs.

Did y’all know your spark plugs have gaps? Because they do. And there’s this special little do-hicky that helps you know the correct…er…gap…or something. If the gap isn’t right, the spark won’t make the ark and no sparky, no go-ey.

So, there, just call me Mrs. Wikipedia.

I even had a car in college we called the LDO, “Little Dodge Omni”. It was light blue, but I think they all were, because whenever I see one on the road they are always light blue and I do a little shriek followed my a moment of silence for my little car with so much character.

Character, in this case includes the inability to stay running while stopped, which presents a problem when you live in a college town with many stoplights. Gratefully, I embraced his eccentricities and though he was not a manual transmission, I managed, as I slowed to a stoplight, to seamlessly put him in neutral and keep one food on the gas and one on the brake. As the light turned green I had to simultaneously slip it to drive, gun the gas and every so slightly let off the brake.

Everyone loved to ride with me in those days, I mean who wouldn’t want to be part of such natural and abundant adventure?

The LDO also had the annoying habit of honking it’s horn whenever it wanted to. Like a continuous honk—not just a cute “beep, beep.” It would do it during the night or while driving in congested traffic. I’m pretty sure it had Turret's and liked to see me angrily banging on the steering wheel while trying to nicely wave to the people in front of me, trying to convince them they were really in North Carolina and I was not a NYC cabdriver who just got robbed.

Luckily, I was dating Jeremy at the time and someone, somewhere had shown him how to disengage the horn by unplugging a wire. Wow, it was love at first car maintenance.

And after being forced to muteness, my little LDO lost all get-up-and-go and died a slow, painful death a few months after we were married.

I found a junk yard who would tow it away for free and they even gave me a dollar (!) to make it legal and all. When the morning arrived, I stood at my window and got a smidgen choked up over seeing my quirky little car who got me through college, roommates, road trips and marriage being dragged to certain death by squishing.

Jeremy was in bed and I begged him to get out, stand with me and give my LDO the respect he deserved. I didn’t ask the man to salute but just give me support and give that little car a moment of silence.

He rolled over.

And I’ve never forgiven him.

Until this month.

(Give me just a moment to segue and then it will all tie together nicely, pinky promise.)

Three weeks before we had our third child, Hannah, we took the leap into mini-vandom.

I’m not sure why people fight it so much—it’s just a bigger trash can on wheels that can fit more orange peels, candy wrappers and rotten apple cores than your two-door sedan.

Just think of it as getting 48 crayons instead of 24! All smashed in your carpet and stuck in seat cracks.

And one week after Hannah was born, I was hormonally challenged and scraped the entire side of our Caravan into one of those stupid yellow cement posty thingies at a gas station. It was over four years ago and I’m still bitter.

I should have sued, but I was too busy crying. We never fixed it and I called it my racing-stripe.

Here I am just a few weeks ago with my good old stripey which has now faded. Again, I love a vehicle with character (not sure why my hair looks so flippy):

But alas, good ol’ blue is now well on her way to being steam cleaned, undented and sent to van boot camp for some well-needed shaping up.

And through some miraculous events we now own a new swagger wagon with a little junk in her trunk. or his. I’m pretty sure he’s a guy.

(I know, I just broke my rule of putting pictures of my kids on this blog, but maybe he is a neighbor kid who just happen to wander over and climb in our big rig, you never know. But isn’t he adorable? Whoever he is.)

And while we are heading down the road of Digression Lane, let’s all give a big hoo-hah to my SIL, Erin for guessing correctly on what rhymed with “hagger hagon”. (If you haven’t watched this video, you simply must, and that’s an order. And then go to YouTube and watch all the other ones. Then charge me for an hour of your life.)

As we were walking away from the car dealership with the keys to our new van and the kids were going bananas over

• who was going to sit where
• and was this really our van
• and what is going to happen to the old one
• and were we really going to get ice cream now,

I held Jeremy’s hand, paused and looked back at our faithful van that drove us from Oklahoma to IA and from IA to Montana and who observed many fights, laughs and even a little puke. This van had taken us from two to four children and had schlepped us around without asking for more than a few brake pads and oil changes for over 56,000 miles.

It was a good van.

And good vans deserve a moment of silence. And my good husband, weathered by four children and ten years of being married to his wife with more than a little “character” had the good sense to stop, roll his eyes and then drag me to our new super-sized trash can with wheels.

And who knows where we’ll be and what we’ll see by the time we take him (the van,  not my husband) to the rusty gates of van heaven.

Post script:

Really, Jeremy is very kind. He’s just not dramatic or overly attached to vehicles and memories like some people are.

If you really want to know how we got our van and what an answer to prayer it was, read on. And I’m not going to write it all clever—just like I sat down on a park bench next to you and threw up my life on your lap.

See? Not pretty.

Most of you know I have four children and our second child has Cerebral Palsy. She is very bright and doesn’t suffer from many health problems and she can walk and even run. But after a while she gets a bit noodly and tends to fall and get bonks. So, for long distances like Wal-mart, malls, zoos, etc., we use her wheelchair.

The wheelchair is also a bit of a miracle story as well. We walked into the pediatric therapy office to meet with the wheelchair guru about starting the ordering process. And before I could even finish my schpiel, she said “Come with me.” And lo and behold 45 minutes before a family had brought in a wheelchair that their daughter had outgrown and it fit Katie perfectly.

Wowie-wow-wow.

But our old van could fit four children, not four children and a toddler-squisher, so we had a problem.

And expensive quandary—one that could cost us 30,000 buckaroos that we do not have. So, we began to pray. 

I researched and called and talked to many people about all our options and for some strange reason, it all came out sounding like, “$$$$$$$$”.

Strange.

So, that’s when the prayers became a bit more urgent.

And I googled and ebayed and consumer reported until I couldn’t anymore. The scales were not tipping in our favor. On one side was our one income family income and the other held a debt that we could in no way accept.

Until one day, Jeremy came home from work and informed me that a man on the board of directors owned a car dealership and agreed to meet with us.

And a little beam of hope began to tip the scale….oh, wait, I wasn’t going to make this all shmancy.. Park bench…throw up….got it.

So, we arrive at the car dealership and are ushered into the conference room. We meet Jim and Mike who started the dealership years ago so they could spend more time with their families. And who have a great passion for helping serve disabled people. They regularly volunteer in Special Olympics, etc.

“Helping people with special needs is our passion.”

My jaw dropped.

They asked what we were looking for and I should have said, “A super-sized trash can with wheels and a hydraulic lid.”

They wrote it all down and we talked about what we could afford and they said it would be tough, but they would do their best. And throughout the meeting they talked about their faith and how they became Christians and how they try to help others.

I was just stunned at what amazing Christian men they are and how grateful I was for their help. I also felt the need to tell them that God always watches out for Katie and that I don’t try to not worry anymore about how things will work out because they always do. I told them that we had the faith required to make this miracle happen and to not be surprised when the exact van we needed came to be at the right place for them to find it. I told them we would be praying for it to happen and that I knew it would.

It took a month or so, but Mike found it at a car auction in Boise, ID—a 2000 Ford van with only 25,000 miles and a snazzy-top-of-the-line-lift. And they made nothing on the deal.  He made a point to show us when we signed the dotted line that they actually lost money “because it was just the right thing to do.” And they let us keep our old van until we could fix the new one so Katie’s wheelchair could fit past the back chair.

Amazing.

Miraculous.

A blessing.

An answer to many sincere and faithful prayers.

So, so often our prayers are answered by the actions of others and I will be forever grateful.

I know this was incredibly long, but thanks for letting me puke on your lap. Here’s a towel.