That in and of itself isn't so strange. After all, we're a growing family with three kids and a fourth one on the way. Lots of growing families make the move from car to mini-van.
No, what made this strange is that we already have a mini-van. So, now we have two mini-vans! Because, apparently, owning one mini-van wasn't enough to show that I'm not a cool guy. Two mini-vans completely drive that point home. Literally.
It was a little sad trading in the car, but not too much so, because we owned it for less than two years. The last time I traded in a car, for our first mini-van, it was a much sadder occasion. I really loved that car, but had to let it go because I totaled it when attempting to merge with the freeway and a deer at the same time. That time was sad. This time I wasn't as attached to the car, so it didn't bother me as much.
You would think that after owning a car for less than two years it wouldn't be that hard to clean it out. Two years isn't a lot of time to accumulate junk in a car. Well, you would be wrong. When it came time to get all my things out of the car so we could trade it in, the list of stuff I had to remove was pretty impressive:
*Jumper cables.
*At least three roadside emergency kits. (Two of which have never been opened.)
*Two first aid kits. (Neither of which have ever been used.)(Thankfully.)
*Fifteen gloves. (Six pair, plus three random unmatched gloves.)
*Six water bottles. (Three unopened; three partially full.)
*One winter coat.
*Two orange safety vests. (From my old job.)
*One ice scraper.
*One plastic rain poncho. (Still in the package.)
*One teddy bear backpack with a long tail/leash. (Yes, it's a leash for keeping kids close while out in public places like the zoo or the mall.)(Don't judge me.)
*One cloth astronaut helmet from a 2014 Halloween costume.
*The program for a concert by The Orchestra (former members of the Electric Light Orchestra) at Park City in July of 2014.
*Two winter stocking caps.
*The book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I haven't yet got around to reading. (I hear they're going to make it into a movie.)
*Sixteen pieces of assorted junk mail. (Including store ads and credit card offers.)
*Two fast food drive-thru bags. (Garbage moved from the passenger seat to the trunk on the rare occasion I had another adult passenger in the front seat.)
 |
| Just some of the junk from the trunk. |
And that's just the junk in the trunk. From the front and back seats I had to remove:
*Two car seats. (One a baby seat, the other a booster.)
*Three more water bottles. (Two unopened; one partially full.)
*Twenty-seven fast food napkins. (Stuffed along the edge of the driver's seat in case they forgot to put napkins in the bag the next time.)
*One package of breath mints.
*One box of Kleenex brand facial tissues.
*$5.73 in loose change. (Mostly in the form of pennies and nickels.)
*One small notebook. (For recording gas mileage.)
*One tire air pressure gauge.
*Three pens.
*Eight music cds. (Six in the stereo; two in the glove box.)
*Five cd cases for those eight cds.
*Three McDonald's Monopoly game pieces. (Park Place, Illinois Avenue, and Illinois Avenue.)
Yes, I removed all of those things. We said goodbye to the car, traded it in and drove the new (used) van home. And when we got home, that's when I realized there was one more thing that was in the car that I should have taken out, something more important than everything else I took out of the car, with the possible exception of the car seats. The thing I left in the car was:
*The garage door opener. (Oops.)
No comments:
Post a Comment