What minivans scream

I'll say at the outset that I hate minivans. Hate them. Everything about them appalls me on a gut level: their design, the way they obscure visibility on the road, how they always seem to be in the fucking way.

I drove one once, and it was loaded with kids. Long story I don't want to get into right now. Aside from the van's clown car-like capacity for kids, I also hated the way it handled. Damned mushy if you ask me. But then, I drive a German car with nice tight steering.

So when a debate about minivans broke out this afternoon in S2's car, I was a willing participant on the "No Minivans" side. S2 was against the minivan, and her two children, 6-year-old Getting To Yes and 3-year-old Little Pea, were trying to demand that she buy one.

There was a curious tone of disgust in S2's voice when she said, "Minivans scream 'mom,' and I'm not having any part of one."

The argument coming from the kids in the backseat: "Minivans don't scream 'mom'; they don't scream anything."

Oh yes they do, I countered. They scream all sorts of things. And none of them are good.

Naturally, the kids were taking this literally, insisting minivans can't scream. But S2 was engaged, shaking her head and mumbling about things that "scream mom."

As an aside, I thought this rather strange because there's a *lot* about S2 that "screams mom." Mainly, the two little girls she's usually got with her. But that's something that can be explored later.

I wouldn't be commenting on this at all if not for a commercial I saw on television this evening. It showed what appeared to be a happy family -- mom, dad and two kids -- driving all over the place, looking at pastoral scenery and going to the beach, among other things. The voice-over announced that this Ford minivan was capable of 500 miles on a tank of gas.

It ends with the dad hugging the two kids. The camera pans back to reveal him in a driveway as he says, "Thanks for inviting me along" to the mom, who remains in the driver's seat from which she nods solemnly at him. Then, to the kids, he says, "I'll see you next weekend."

That there minivan -- technically, a "crossover" vehicle that is somewhere between a minivan, a stationwagon and an SUV -- is a divorcemobile!

I'm not sure what to make of this commercial. It seems to be tapping into the vein of "reality" television, as if we will somehow give this car or Ford itself more street cred because it represents some authentic "story" about its target market.

The woman in the driver's seat does *not* look happy. In fact, when the dad thanks her, she looks teary and dreary. To make things worse, the door comes up too high, rendering her little more than an unhappy head.

The whole thing left me with mixed feelings. The pleasant images of the family in the minivan went essentially ignored by me. Just your regular commercial fodder. But when it turns to that solemn nod given by the woman and we see this "happy" family is actually a busted one, I felt a little depressed. Not exactly the emotion one normally tries to evoke while selling a car.

I guess this is Ford's attempt to be edgy.

It kind of reminds me of those insurance commercials a few years ago in which a couple was divorcing, and viewers were privvy to their kitchen conversation about who was going to have to break the news to the kids. That one left me feeling totally sticky. I don't want to see commercials showing people fighting over emotionally tense material.

But I'm also not sure I want to see commercials depicting some kind of cotton-candy version of divorce. How many divorced moms take the dad on a weekend getaway with the kids? That's something *lesbians* might do, but straight people? I don't feel convinced.

In any case, it seems a car can scream not just "mom" but "divorced mom," as well. It doesn't matter who's in the damn thing, though, because whenever I see a minivan, something within *me* screams, even if it's a silent one.

I hope S2 never bends to the whims of her children on this one. No matter what you're wearing, a minivan makes your clothes look dumpy. It's a fact. And S2 could never live with that.