You are not the car you drive.

There's a Doonesbury comic out there somewhere. In it, Mike is talking to his teenaged daughter Alex about being wealthy, since they recently made a lot of money running a dot-com, and bought an SUV. Alex accuses him of being a sell-out, to which Mike replies "I didn't sell out, I bought in!".

If I could find a copy of this particular strip, I'd get it framed and put it on my wall. It's become my motto in life. When I first saw the strip in college, I identified more with Alex. Now, a number of years and a couple of kids later... well, I'll just say that I can see where Mike is coming from.

I only bring this up now because I'm now the proud owner of a Honda Odyssey. Yep, you got it. It's minivan time. And to tell the truth, even though the last vestiges of my youthful idealism are slinking away in shame, I'm not really all that sad about it.

There are certain realities that become extant when you have two kids. A lot of them revolve around getting everyone in and out of cars and hauling around lots of stuff. Strollers, wagons, bags, toys, car seats, kids, groceries, you get the idea. And all of Cynthia's business stuff on top of that... So, for some reason, some company decided to make a vehicle that makes all this crap easier. Lots of room, seats that fold into the floor, doors that open and shut for you, a DVD player, wireless *freakin* headphones... crap, I'm a yuppie. Wait a sec, lemme go look in the mirror... yeah, damnit. There's really no way around it. I worry about airbags for chrissake.

So Honda made this thing, and, well, I'm nothing if not practical. It's a nice piece of engineering, even if a sportscar it ain't. They didn't quite think of everything, but pretty damn close. To plagiarize from Real Life, it's like Honda is personally apologizing for emasculating me.

What the hell, with two kids you can justify anything.

But just in case, I still have my bus.