I have always loved driving small, fast cars. As long as I was single, I always had cool little six speed cars that were great fun for commuting, horrible in the snow, and completely impractical to get anything done.
Soon after getting engaged, I started to think that cars should serve a purpose. My fiance and I were both commuting over an hour and a half each way, and we had an opportunity to cut my wife’s commute in half by trading in my Lancer for a Prius. It was a no-brainer of a trade, despite the hit to my manhood.
The days I drove that powder blue Prius to work were a dream even if I wanted to hide my face from every other driver I passed. I cut right around the worst traffic, coasting at 65 MPH on cruise control in the HOV lane. My hour and a half long drive was cut to 40 minutes and I was basically a spectator during rush hour. We noticed that the car actually made us happier people!
What’s more, while my Lancer was barely capable of transporting groceries, the interior of a Prius is comparatively cavernous. I used it to transport things like a new front door, a 36″ vanity, and 800 lbs of pool salt (not recommended). Owning the Prius taught me that a car should serve a purpose.
When we started our family, we bought our first crossover SUV, and both stopped commuting. The Prius had outlived its usefulness and we sold it, leaving us with a very practical Subaru Forester. We leased the Forester because we knew we’d be having two kids quickly and didn’t know if it could handle the storage required to travel with two kids.
It turned out the Forester just wasn’t the car for us to often drive with two car seats, our dog, two Pack-n-Play’s, a double stroller, suitcases, etc. When the lease ran out we switched to a Toyota Highlander for a slightly higher lease price, and have been very happy ever since.
Now we are expecting our third kid in four years. The Highlander has a third row, and it can accommodate three car seats (edit: in theory this was possible, but one kid would have to have no legs), but the storage would all but disappear. What’s more, even with second row captains chairs, it’s very difficult for an adult to get to the third row to buckle in a kid properly. Our lease is up in four months, and we are starting to look for something that better suits a family with three kids in car seats.
I know what you’re thinking, and it ain’t happening.
I can suck it up and drive a powder blue Prius in traffic. I can be the dad driving a Forester (which I always called The Griswold Family Truckster) with baby spit up on my shirt. I can not drive a minivan.
I know that a minivan is far and away the most practical answer to my vehicle problem. I know it’s the most economical answer. I know they have come a long way and can be like a rolling hotel. I don’t care.
I find myself sitting here looking at full size SUVs driven by the kind of people I generally despise. They are far too big. They are the kind of big, fat, lumbering monsters I used to whip around in my tiny cars cursing them for clogging up the highway. What’s more, they’re INCREDIBLY expensive! Who in their right mind would pay $70-80k for a Ford or Chevy that’s not a Mustang or Corvette?!
My hatred of minivan’s is starting to clash with my love of practicality and frugality. This is a big problem for me. I will spend the next four months battling back and forth with myself, but I’m not budging on this minivan thing. There has to be a solution…
Freed by 50 