Tag Archives: safety

The Van Life

Posted on by
6

We’re toying with the notion of buying a mini-van, a move that, according to absolutely everyone we consult, will eliminate any remaining vestige of hipness from our lives. Luckily, we’ve never been hip, so there isn’t much to lose. That’s not to say that when I was a young lad daydreaming about what my life as an adult would be like, I pictured cruising around in a white Toyota Sienna. A vintage Woody with surf boards hanging out the back is more what I had in mind for my future. I would catch killer tube by day, and sleep in the car parked at the nearest Circle K by night. To feed myself, I would bed a series of artistic, but gullible college girls, mooching off their unlimited meal cards at the university cafeteria. Dudes, raise your hand if you had a similar dream. Now, keep that hand up if you’re actually living that dream.

Yeah, me neither.

I have my beautiful wife to blame…er…thank for that. If it wasn’t for her, I’d truly be living in a van down by the river (how awesome would that be!?). And if it wasn’t for her, I’d drive my 1998 diesel Jetta until the wheels fall off, which by the looks of things, could be tomorrow.

So, the mini van enters into the equation. Even though I’m not clinging to any delusions that I am young or hip (cool, rad, boss…what do kids say these days?) I’m still not gung-ho about buying a mini van. My wife says we need the space, but I see families of nine pile in and out of 1999 Honda Civics all the time. She says we need something more reliable than our 12 year old cars, but really, with the glaring oversights in manufacturing practices these days, what does the word “reliable” mean anymore?

In order to test out the world of mini vanning (yes, it’s a verb too), we’ve rented one for a week. My wife is hoping it will convince me that a mini van will make our lives so much easier. What she doesn’t realize is that there’s only one reason a man buys a van: the potential for mobile sex. That’s the long and short of it, period, the end. If you see a guy driving a van, be it a mini or full size, you can be certain he’s on the prowl. At the very least, there’s an inflatable mattress stowed in the back and a disco ball ready to descend from the ceiling given the right opportunity. That’s not a sunroof on the ceiling, that’s a mirror, baby!

But I digress.

I will admit there’s more room in the mini. It has more square footage than our house, which could come in handy. Since my daughter has developed a serious dress fetish, we’ve quickly run out of closet space. I could easily use the spacious trunk as my closet. Would it be weird if I wandered out there every morning wearing a robe and drinking coffee to get dressed? What if I wasn’t wearing the robe?

Just driving the MV around town for a day, I’ve noticed one undeniable truth: Blasting Jay Z from a mini van makes you look like a jackass. Cranking George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex,” on the other hand, is perfectly appropriate.

With all this talk about mini vans, I think we’ve overlooked the obvious solution to our problem. We need a solid family car–what about a golf cart. Before you scoff, I’d like to point out three things.

  1. Golf carts are awesome. You can’t deny that. The only thing more awesome than commuting to work in a golf cart, would be commuting to work in a dune buggy.
  2. Gas prices continue to rise and America is experiencing an oil crisis. Golf carts can literally travel for several miles on a single charge. Don’t you love the earth?
  3. Golf carts may lack standard safety features like seat belts and a windshield, but picture the kids riding to school, the wind blowing in their hair, their tiny legs securely strapped to the seat with a healthy amount of duct tape.

Imagine you’re in stand still traffic and all you have to do is drive up slowly to the car in front of you and ask, “mind if I play through?”

It doesn’t get much more practical than that.

Safety Dance

Posted on by
21

This is how I know it’s Spring now that I’m kind of an adult: I’m craving increasingly lighter beers with citrus in them. I know, I’m a girl. Leave it alone.

This is how I knew it was Spring when I was a kid: The smell of smoke from all of the accidental forest fires around town, all of which were set by kids in my neighborhood. And by “kids in my neighborhood,” I mean my two older brothers. It’s not as sinister as it sounds. Every Spring, caterpillars would set up cozy little cocoons in the trees surrounding our house, and every Spring, my brothers, armed with Bic lighters and cans of WD-40, would hunt down the cotton-candy-like cocoons. For those of you who weren’t raised in a house with two cars up on blocks in the front yard: The great thing about WD-40 and a Bic lighter is the blow-torch effect you get when you combine the two. Don’t judge us too harshly: We didn’t have cable, so we came up with our own entertainment. Imagine two middle-school kids in whitewash jeans and RATT tank tops all jacked up on Rambo fantasies heading into the woods with redneck blowtorches, and you’ll get a good image of what I’m talking about here.

The truly disturbing part of this story isn’t the satisfaction that my brothers got from scorching sleeping caterpillars. It’s that my parents were perfectly fine with two children wandering around the neighborhood with homemade bombs.

Can you imagine parents letting their 11-year-old kid loose in the woods with a blowtorch in 2012? Hell no. I don’t even think I’ll let my kids walk to school alone when they’re 11.

But my brothers and I were lucky to be raised during the ‘80s, when kids spent their free time playing elaborate games of “war” armed with air-pump BB guns and Roman Candles.

Safety was a different issue back then. A non-issue, really. Seat belts were for pussies. Bicycle helmet? What bicycle helmet? Quality time with my dad was when he sat me on his lap while he was driving and let me steer the station wagon down the interstate at 80mph. MTV wasn’t allowed in our house, but driving a car at 7? Sure.

Today, there’s a five-point safety checklist I go through before I’ll even start the damned car with my kids in it. If I forget to lather my kids with sun screen for a 30 minute session in the park, I feel like calling DSS on myself. They wear Water Wings for their tubbies and have never even walked outside without hard plastic on their heads. I make the dad in Finding Nemo look laid back.

On the one hand, I feel sorry for my kids and their peers, as they’re being raised during the “Golden Age of Irrational Fears,” where everything is padded, locked, and kid proofed. They will probably never know the joy of playing Bow and Arrow Chicken (two people stand together, one shoots an arrow straight into the air. Last one to move wins. Awesome). If I could figure out a way to wrap my kids in bubble wrap before they played soccer, I’d do it. Life was just more carefree when RATT’s “Round and Round,” was getting heavy radio play. Each morning, kids were simply let loose into the neighborhood with their throwing stars, fireworks, and stolen Hustler magazines, free to reenact scenes from Lord of the Flies as they saw fit.

I couldn’t imagine being raised any other way.

On the other hand, I can’t believe we didn’t blow ourselves up. With all the flammable hairspray bottles lying around our house and almost complete lack of adult supervision, it’s a damned miracle any of us made it out alive.

So while I appreciate the laissez faire approach to parenting that seemed to be the federal mandate in 1983, I’m going to stick with my overprotective micro-management approach. Now, can anyone help me build a prototype of that bubble-wrap suit I keep dreaming about?

Children of Former Decades: What’s the craziest thing your parents let you do? Steering the family car on a road trip is up there for me. Encouraging me to strip antique furniture with industrial grade acids might also make the list.