Minivanity

Dear Teenage Girl Who Scoffed Disdainfully at my Minivan:

Thanks for the scathingly judgmental look you cast at my ride while we were at a stoplight. "Like, I'll never drive a minivan," I'm sure you said, in your snottiest tone, to your friend in the driver's seat of your tiny little Mazda or whatever. And she was probably all, "I know, right?! Sooo lame." (Or, you know, whatever you kids say these days.)

Look. I get it. You're cute, and all your body parts are still where they're supposed to be without the assistance of underwire and copious amounts of Spandex. You know everything. The world is your oyster, and everybody over twenty-five is terminally uncool and just straight-up unworthy of occupying space in it. You drive a small, cute car because you have nothing to carry in it besides your backpack and giant purse and sometimes a drunk friend or two in the backseat because ohmygawd, you know what would be ah-maaaazing right now? TACO BELL. 

But what you forget, my dear, is that I didn't burst forth from the womb as a harried, minivan-driving mother of four. A mere *coughcough* years ago, I too was cute. Smug. Taut and un-cellulitey. Unhindered by children and driving a sporty little car devoid of boogers, baby wipes and stray Happy Meal toys. In short, I was ... you. Which means a decade or so from now, you will probably be me. 

By then you will have realized that your metabolism is not equipped to handle all that Taco Bell, and that your parents are not in fact "soooo stupid," and that, when you're carrying an infant seat and a diaper bag and four sacks of groceries and trying to keep a grip on an escape-artist toddler, a door that opens with one touch - i.e., a minivan - will be your best friend.

I'll be honest: it stings a little, getting an OMG you're such a loser look from a cooler-than-thou teenager. It's a reminder that I now spend my Friday nights at Walmart, shopping for gifts for the umpteen birthday parties I'll be toting the kids to over the weekend. Or drinking a glass of wine that I didn't even get carded to buy (boohoo!) and falling asleep on the couch at 9:30.

But someday ... some day ... karma will come around to haunt you. She can be cruel.

And watch out, because I'm pretty sure she drives a minivan.