The Minivan from Hell!

Whoop-whoop

My minvan broke down on Dec 19th. I had to have my kids at Dulles Airport in D.C. on Dec 20th. I called all the local car rental places and Steve Lobosco at Corrigans/Hertz in Water Mill came through for me big time with a brand new minivan at a fantastic price. I had a few other concerns though.
“Steve, I’ll need instructions on how to operate the van. My knowledge stops with my 1990 minivan.”
“Don’t worry. These new cars are a cinch to drive.”
“Steve, I’m a big gal, I’m worried about fitting into a Japanese minivan.”
“Don’t worry, I got plenty of WD-40 and a crowbar, I’ll get you in.”
“Geez, what a guy,” I thought to myself.

Arriving at Corrigans, Steve gave me a fifteen minute review of all the controls. There seems to be many changes in minivan technology since 1990 and the control console has apparently been modeled after the one in the space shuttle. I was terribly distracted by time pressure while Steve spoke, and I hesitated to let him out of the van because I missed everything between, “Let me show you how this works” and “you’re all set.” For some reason, the van didn’t have an instruction manual which was greatly missed as the trip progressed.

Pulling into my driveway at 5 pm, I hurled bodies and luggage into the van and we were on the road by 6.

The first problem was the heater. There was no way to turn it off or control it. My son stripped to his pants in the back seat and I had made some kind of adjustment that now blew hot air on my head and freezing air on my feet. In desperation, I turned on the air conditioning for my son and I struggled to put my window down. But apparently the driver’s window zooms completely down or up in a flash, but you can’t have anything in between. So I spent eight hours using the radio like a timer, after each song, zoom down to cool during the commercials, then zoom up for the songs.

We arrived at my mothers in Pennsylvania and she was so excited to drive in a brand new car the next morning, I didn’t have the heart to tell her the car was possessed by Satan.

We all left the next morning for the airport. On the way, we picked up my 20 year old daughter. She was full of divine wisdom. Within seconds of being in the heat, she said, “Mom, the back has separate controls for the heater, up here above the door.” She was able to turn off the heat in the back which enabled my son to put his shirt back on. I asked her if she could help with the heater in the front, but she was laughing at me, an evil laugh that told me the car had possessed her too.

Mother and I dropped off the kids at the airport. It was tricky because I couldn’t get any of the doors to open for about two minutes. The traffic monitor came by, because you can’t be in the drop off lane unless you are dropping people off, and I was trying to explain to him through the window that I couldn’t get the doors open. He made a ‘turn the key’ gesture, so I turned the car on, zoomed the window down and he reached inside my van and tapped one button, a magic button, somewhere on the door console that opened all the doors and hatch at once. But he got away before I could ask him where that button was.

Once the kids we gone, Mother and I headed back to her house, she sat in the back for comfort. She wanted me to redirect the music through the front speakers, which I was convinced were just for show because I’d already tried to redirect the radio and like the heater, it was controlled by satanic forces.

I hit a button somewhere and the sliding door next to Mother opened. That was a nice feature to discover, but not while driving 65 mph on an interstate. The McDonald’s garbage was sailing past her face as she screamed. I was pressing all the buttons I could find around me. Finally the sliding door closed. However all the windows were down, there was a police chopper above us, and from somewhere in the car, a woman’s voice said, “State your destination, please.” I didn’t know who she was, or where she came from, but I shouted, “Home, take me to my mother’s house!” I figured she was an angel sent to combat the devil in this car.

“What state, please?” asked the woman’s voice. I answered her and she kept asking more questions that progressively ended up with her knowing the way to my mother’s house from where ever we were in West Virginia. Now, for those of you who are thinking, ‘how did she get from Dulles to West Virginia if she’s heading for Pennsylvania?’ you’re only asking that question because you’ve never driven with me before.

The disembodied voice guided us home. I thanked the angel and left a cookie on the dashboard as an offering and in the hope she might reappear the next time I got in the car.

Over the week that followed, I had many adventures in that minivan. I returned it to Steve Lobosco unscathed but for my trauma. I told him all about the devil car and the angel that comes to help the poor unsuspecting driver. He kept a straight face until I told him about the whoop-whoop being broken. I know that new cars make a whoop-whoop sound when you use the remote to lock or unlock them. The remote that Steve gave me didn’t make the whoop-whoop sound, so it was necessary for me to make the sound myself so the car would hear it at a distance and be able to unlock. I did a demo for him because I was very proud of how precisely I could imitate the pitch of the car remote whoop-whoop. As I left, I could hear Steve crying, or was he laughing? And saying something like, “Mother of God, make her stop!”