Suburban Goddess

My truck is in the shop for repairs this week, so I’m stuck with a rental. My husband was in charge of that endeavor, so with great glee he brought home a minivan as punishment for scratching the truck in the first place. I took my punishment with dignity; I whined for a couple days about the embarassment of having to drive a minivan, but eventually gave up the fight and endured the pain. After all, I deserved it.

Apparently, Minivan heard my complaints and took offense to it, because it suddenly began to make subtle attacks upon my health and the health of my children. While loading my child into her carseat, the door mysteriously moved, sending me hurtling forward to bump Alex’s head on the doorjamb. A day later, a similar event occured, and I bumped Alex’s head on the door and ended up with a bruise on my arm.

But the definitive moment that I knew Minivan had it out for me was Friday evening. I was picking up Alex from daycare. P-Bug was doing his best to irritate me with a high-pitched rendition of his latest original, “The Banana Song,” while Alex howled in the back seat of starvation. I realized I’d forgotten to drop off the weekly daycare payment, so I had to fight flailing baby hands and reach across my hysterical child (more bruises) to grab my purse, banging my head on the roof while trying to retreat. By now, I was pretty ticked off, so in a classic woman move, I took a big suffering sigh and went to slam the car door for emphasis.

Minivan pounced.

Unaccustomed to Minivan Dimensions, I didn’t realize that the top of the door protruded more than the bottom, and was greeted with a powerful left-Minivan-hook to the lip. I stood stunned for a moment, then realized blood was pouring from my face. P-Bug fell silent. Even Alex shut up. Both of them looked at me with that wide-eyed childhood innocence and the “I-didn’t-do-it!” plea. I carefully felt my front teeth, silently thanking God that they were still there, and looked at Minivan with great hatred, but a newly-formed respect.

All week my co-workers have been eyeing my busted lip, but said nothing until today. A particularly nosy busy-body pulled me aside in the company kitchen with a great deal of drama.

“Honey, did your husband hit you?”

“No,” I answered, swirling the cream in my coffee lazily. “We went out Saturday to some little redneck bar, and this redneck Amazon woman decided to sucker-punch me, so I took her out with a roundhouse to the left knee. I’m pretty sure it’s broken.” And with that I walked away, leaving the busybody with a stunned look on her face.

Come on! Like I’m going to admit I slammed my face in a minivan??? I’m sure it’s sitting in the parking lot with a smirk upon its grill. Touché Minivan. You win this battle. I hope the next unsuspecting renter has a child with a weak stomach.

This entry was posted on June 15, 2006 at 5:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.