Check out my sweet new ride (note sarcasm). IT'S TEMPORARY! JUST FOR A FEW DAYS! (Panting, hyperventilating). See, I had to take my car in to get it repaired after this happened. And I had to rent a car so as not to be completely stranded while the collision shop takes FOUR DAYS to repair a frisbee sized dent. I called Enterprise because they said they would pick me up, and they did. They sent the most idiotic, uninformed kid they could find to pick me up. I asked him several basic questions like, "Is this the car I'm taking? Because they said they'd pick me up in the car I'm taking," and "Do you have the paperwork with you?" and "Can I return this to the branch in my town?" none of which he knew the answer to. He did know that his name was Mike. Daphne asked him...and then proceeded to call him Megan for the next 20 minutes. Soon Beck was hollaring "Megan! Megan!" too. That part was actually kind of funny. Anyway, they sent Megan Mike to pick me up in the most pared down, ghetto poor, base model of a minivan you've ever seen. I wasn't worried at first because I had ordered a midsize sedan, like 6 downgrades away from a minivan. They told me it would be something like a G6, whatever that is, or a Jetta, which sounded good to me. Even if I did have to wedge two car seats and all my kids' crap into the back of a Jetta, at least I would be able to hold my head up for the next few days. But when I got to the Enterprise office, the frozen-frosting-smile associate informed me that they had upgraded me to the minivan! Yeah! (note sarcasm again). I smiled a frozen frosting smile back because I was too close to crying to inform her that I was not yet ready to trade away the last ounce of coolness and dignity I had left as a mother of two for three extra seats. (No offense to all you wonderful women who have already traded away your last ounce of coolness and dignity for three extra seats--I know sometimes it's got to be done. Hmmm....I can feel the hate mail being written as we speak.) And the worst part is, it's not even a tricked out, blinged out, Mommy fantasy minivan. The doors have to be PULLED open and shut! The seats are made of some kind of food-magnet cloth. There's no sun roof. No shades to pull down on the sides of the back seats, no cup holders suspended from the ceiling on invisible wires, no surround sound, hi-def, 25" screens on the back of every seat, no rotating tray of hors d'ouvres in the floor, no talking computer to drive the car for me while I take a nap. Nothing to help me look down my nose at the people who were trying to look down their nose at me. Nothing to help me know that while they may think me uncool, I was able to pull a 6" thick soundproof barrier down between me and the backseat (they make those in minivans now, right?) Just a dark blue minivan of shame to drive around in. With a Dodge symbol on the back. WAAAAHHH! I want my snooty-hippy, downtown-loving, dangerously-close-to-but-not-quite-a-minivan Tribecca back!
