My van is in the shop.

Not because it broke down, but because I decided to go much sooner than the Expedition in front of me at a stop light 3 weeks ago. I was tired. Spacing. Always an effective way to drive, I find. In my tired spaciness I saw the light turn green. Then I noted that the people directly on either side of me were moving on. I moved on, too.

Unfortunately, the guy in front of me went nowhere. I crunched into him. Then I spoke to myself harshly on the matter, though I tried very hard to use “green words” as I did so. I will admit that yellow and red words are much more impactful in a situation like this one. Saying, “You idiot!” to yourself as you pull over to inspect the damage is much more natural and effective than saying something like “You daft person! You person of low intellect and navigation skills!” But whatever. I don’t remember what I said. I just know I was pretty stressed out at that point. The girls both began screaming, though I’m not really sure why. I wasn’t screaming. It certainly added to the ambiance to have screaming children in the car.

Also adding to the ambiance was the fact that hardly a word of English could be found in the other car. I actually had the thought, “where is Spemma when I need her? I need SPANISH EMMA.” She was at work, not rear-ending people.  I cast my mind quickly back to the garage sale, to the ladies trying to force a return on a working flashlight. Over and over again, Emma said, “Lo siento.” This morphed into our “no returno, no exchango” policy. But lo siento was legit and I knew it meant “I’m sorry.” That seemed like a perfectly reasonable phrase to use, so I used it. About 15 times. As my luck would have it, there was no damage to the other vehicle. The wife looked grumpy, but everyone else was really nice. The kids were very sweet, probably about the age of my 10 year old. The husband was so adorable I would have invited him to live with us. But that seemed highly inappropriate, especially in light of the fact that I just smashed into him and all.

With a few more lo sientos, I was on my way again. Sigh. I knew from looking at my car that I was in a mess. You can swipe a kleenex against your car hard and end up doing $300 damage. I knew what I’d done was going to be a heap o’ money, or as they say in Mexico, “dinero.” I did not realize HOW MUCH a heap really was. Ouch.

But it’s being fixed now and should come back to me tomorrow. And for some reason I am telling you this story. Maybe because I think it’s funny? No. It’s not that. Because when you flush that much money down the car toilet, it’s not so funny.

Yeah, I don’t know. My van is in the shop. You can have this story for free. Unless you want to send donations to the van fund.

I know now why I drive a van, though. When you cram 4 kids into a sedan, the mom wants to punch people. Every noise is 1000x louder and for some reason all of the children are exponentially more noisy. If Mighty Beanz could yell and live inside your ear canal, that’s what driving in a sedan with my 4 is like. Just like that.

I still don’t remember why I started the van story. It certainly doesn’t paint me in a good light.

Well, anyway.

When I arrived home this afternoon from a free lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (I’m pausing to allow you a few moments to be angry and jealous. If you get too angry or sinfully envious, just remember my van is in the shop and you’ll feel better about being you and not being me. It’s really, really hard to be me.), I saw a package from Amazon.com. Oh, how I love to see a book on my front stoop. I ordered a book called How They Croaked: The Awful Deaths of the Awfully Famous. Doesn’t that sound fun? I think it does.

And after I got really excited about the book, I checked my email. There was an email from Google Voice. I don’t really understand how all of this works, but we’ve switched our landline basically off. We can still receive calls to it, but they go straight to Google Voicemail. This can get very interesting, because a software program is trying to listen to the person talking and translate for me in an email message. Let me leave you with two examples that I find funny. If voice recognition software is this advanced, when my van finally dies for the final time, I will probably be able to trade it in for a time machine.

Google Voice:

Hi. This is Justin’s ministry confirming interest appointment for tomorrow, Thursday, June 23rd at 9:30. Also for ensure nothing to eat or drink 2 hours prior. Thank you.

“Justin’s Ministry” is actually Children’s Dentistry. Interest is my oldest boy’s name, and I shall hereafter call him Interest.

Hey, it’s me. Yes, my teacher Gone, and I would, give my two friends need to talk to you You know that I would leave me a a bit awkward looking. Love you guys.

I have no idea what all of that was supposed to be. “You know that I would leave me a bit awkward looking” is quite intriguing, though. I shall attempt to call this one back.

And still, at the end of all of this, I have no idea why I spilled the guts on the van thing.