Minivans are Manly & Cheap
Josh SnaderI haven’t written any posts in awhile, mostly because I’ve been in hiding. I’ve been in hiding because I’ve committed a shameful, awful act that I didn’t want anyone to find out about. No, no, I didn't become a vegetarian or start a gluten free diet. It is, however, an act so incredibly docile in nature that other men instantly think they have the right to grab your man card and rip it up right in front of you.
You see, I bought a minivan. And it’s one of the most common, ordinary, ugly vehicles on the road today. Check it out:
THE BAD THINGS ABOUT OWNING A MINI VAN:
- Mini vans are possibly the ugliest vehicles on the market today. Mine would be the ugliest, but it’s not currently on the market.
- You'll always have freeloaders. All your friends, who hate mini vans, want you to drive because they like being all together in one vehicle. That’s all fine and good but they never help pay for gas.
- Everyone thinks you are a domesticated, boring person. You can help offset this image by splattering your mini van with bumper stickers. Spending an afternoon with several bags of spray bombs also helps set your van apart. I didn’t get to that step as of yet because after having a kid, I can’t afford a decent can of spray paint.
THE GOOD THINGS ABOUT OWNING A MINI VAN:
- Mini vans can be found in abundance on Craigslist for one or two weeks wages (depending on how classy of a mini van you are looking for). This is good because it saves you money when you buy a “new” vehicle. In my crazy teenage years I bought a ’94 Mercury Villager for a mere $550. However, after maturing into an adult I opted for a more premium ’05 Dodge Caravan coming in at $1500.
- Mini vans are boring. This might seem like a bad thing, when in fact, it’s quite the opposite. When an officer of the law clocks a mini van speeding in excess of 100 mph, he looks down at his radar gun in bewilderment, taps the screen, shrugs, and goes back to looking for other cars he believes can actually go that fast.
- No one looks inside a mini van for valuables. Let’s face it, if you are looking for good stereo equipment or valuables to steal, would you profile a mini van or the sports car? If you were running from the police and were looking for a car to hijack, would you pick the mini van or the jacked up pickup? All people expect to find in a mini van are stale Cheerio’s and car seats. You don’t have to put just Cheerios and car seats in mini vans, I found kayaks, motorcycles, and raft building materials (along with other odds and ends) also fit inside quite well, which brings me to my next point:
- Mini vans offer the maximum cargo space for the best fuel economy. My personal mini van gets around 20 mpg highway, which isn’t spectacular, but consider the fact that I can haul 6 people with relative comfort. You can't get that MPG with a similarly priced truck or SUV
- Insurance is dirt cheap since insurance companies never suspect the mini van types to be crazy drivers.
- Mini vans are comfortable. If you ever go on a road trip, sleeping in your vehicle can save you money. Of course, sleeping in a Geo Metro (one of my favorite vehicles of all time) can get quite old, considering your knees are propping up your chin. Mini vans have enough room in that you can fit a whole mattress in the back, if need be. My personal (luxurious) mini van has captain seats in the back that recline nearly flat, giving you immense comfort and a cheap sleep.
- Mini vans provide lockable storage space. I know several people who own pickups, and, while pickups definitely have advantages, they are expensive and not very secure. Any Joe Smoe can come along and can lift as much stuff as his biceps can let him out of the back of your truck. A van is lockable and sealed from the weather (well, mostly, it depends on how extensive the rust is). So I can just throw my kayak, life jacket, and paddles in the back, close the hatch, and never worry about things flying or “walking” off. I like that.
- You can fit children in them. This is obviously only a benefit if you have kids. Yes, you can spend all day trying to fit the car seat in the back seat of your luxury sedan while your feet are pointing straight out the drivers side window, thrashing around trying to achieve counterbalance to the seat belt that you have in your teeth while soothing a crying baby with restrained and muffled expressions of anger, but why would you want to do that? With the mini van, literally half of the car opens and you simply lean in and calmly attend to your family’s needs (which probably involves diapers).
With all the positive aspects of small vans, why are men so hateful towards minivan ownership? Because men hate being seen as anything less than macho. So they avoid mini vans like the plague because they have ego’s that need to be nursed. They have a need to be accepted by all the other men who they don’t even know. They need that display of manliness because they need to convince others that they are real men. So, in a very real sense, a genuine macho man would be fine driving a junky mini van because he is not dependent on others for his self confidence. So there you have it, folks. Minivans are, in fact, manly.