Oh, you have no idea.

Yesterday I took my van in to have the drop-down DVD player repaired.

It stopped working a few months ago, but I haven’t had a chance to take it in because I couldn’t be without my vehicle during the summer. The logistics of three kids, dropping off the van, switching the seats into Phil’s car, etc. was just too much to handle in this heat. So no DVD player in the car all summer. No biggie.

It’s not like we really went anywhere that was far enough away to allow even one movie to play all the way through, anyway.

Not my point.



Point is, kids are finally back in school (yay!), we are headed to Dallas for the weekend, and I was looking forward to a nice, quiet drive with the kids wearing their headphones, immersed in a movie they’ve seen 50 times, but shush each other throughout like it’s a first-run premiere.

So, I took the van in to have it repaired/ replaced/ basically whatever the warranty covers.

And the tech was a very nice guy. Nice enough to write down the stations that my radio was set to so he could re-set them after they worked on the system. Nice enough to offer to run my receipt up to customer service to check out the warranty, since I seemed like I was in a hurry.

Nice enough to checkmark the box for the ‘Interior of the Vehicle’ as:




HEAVY WEAR & TEAR.

Whaaaat?? That’s not very nice. :(

I mean, I know my van’s not the cleanest mini-van on the planet (Planet Linson or otherwise.) But HEAVY wear and tear? On a vehicle that I’m still 5 months away from owning outright??


NORMAL wear and tear, yes, I get that. I mean, I have been known to let them eat in the car from time to time.

And there was that time I let them eat their McDonald’s ice cream cones in the van because I saw that guy sitting in the booth next to us, rocking back and forth, eyes squeezed shut, murmuring, ‘Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!’, and clutching his backpack to his chest. That seemed like a good opportunity to just grab our cones, and enjoy them on our drive home.

And we MAY have had a Sonic slushy or two spill out on the seats. And there *is* a red gummy bear ground into the back of the seat that we’ve never been able to fully get out. But it’s covered by a carseat… there was no way he could have seen that!


Anyway, I peeked over his shoulder as he filled out the form, checking off HEAVY WEAR & TEAR.

The only place to go from here is the box marked: COMPLETELY PIGGISH CONDITION.

He saw me watching him. He must have noticed my stricken look because he shrugged and said, “I just have to finish up the paperwork. Don’t worry, I’ve seen a lot worse. Kids can really do a number on a car.”



I just sighed and nodded.


But what I really wanted to say was, “You should see what they can do to a uterus.”