The Van Comes Home

Last Edit May 1998

My older son (now 22) has acquired a brand-new $22,000 Toyota Truck. His baby. His dream machine. Better than mine. Better than any of my former cars. Baby blue. Shiney. Fancy dodads. Cloth upholstry.10-CD changer. Plugs for a laptop. Or maybe two. (For when you are stuck on the freeway I guess.) Security beepers. It's an extended cab. With a bedliner. With a switch to disable the clutch.
The camper shell comes next.

I got to reacquire my once pristine, pretty white '87 Toyota Van back from him for the low price of $1,500 - what he needed for the balance of the down payment on his truck. Don't ask. Just say I no longer write checks without getting something in return. This keeps the peace. Loans don't ever get paid back.
The van was pristine after the $6,000 rebuild after his first accident. It even had a new windshield.
The van is dead in the driveway.
There is mold on the battery. There are duck-tape marks where the tails lights used to be. Both sides. The back door cannot open. There is no spare tire because he changed a flat and left the flat - wheel and all - by the side of the road. He knows where he left it - he just never went back. The garage can't find a replacement.
And the side door can't be opened from the outside. Even with the child safety lock off.
The battery is not the Sears Diehard I had bought - seems he hooked that one up backwards - and it exploded. So there is some cheap thing in it instead. Which is why it is dead. Thank god for the Auto Club.
It took my younger child four hours of hard scrubbing, twice, to find the white paint. Most of it. What was left of it. It took me longer to scrub off the dashboard and the coffee holder - sticky from clumsy driving with a full cup. My older one tells me he "forgot how white it had been". Not surprising. He hadn't seen it clean in four years.
(I wish my young son would spend fours hours cleaning his room.)
Even the Club looks to be on its last legs - so I bought a new white one.
Some of the carpets are still in the car - the old original brown and the new blue ones I had given him. They are laying out in the rain - El Ninio can help with something.
Cement blocks in the back are to "hold it on the road". Funny. In all the years I had it, I never had to resort to that old trick. Does taking a curve at the speed limit sound strange? Unusual? I would take them out, but I can't get the rear door open. Crumpled metal doesn't give.
Duck tape should fix the tears in the upholstery, that and new seatcovers. And removing all the loose change will help reduce rattles.
My youngest son hung several air freshners up, with a few spares ready to open. (It had to be bad for a teenage boy to notice. I know. I've been in his room.)
It can't clear my steep driveway without banging its nose. I knew there was a reason people up and down the street use 2x4s in the street. One neighbor even built a ramp. My truck stays on the curb. The Bug hasn't moved in five years. (It's waiting to be fixed. It's next. Yep, the older boy drove it last.) Two cars in the street is tacky. Two wrecks in the driveway ---well, OK.
The tires are on their steel belts. And they are not the 66,000 Michelin radials I always used. I don't know what they are. I haven't looked. They are past caring. I know the van eats its front tires once a year. All '87 Toyota vans do. But the rear ones too?
And the estimate of repairs from the garage totals nearly $2,000. Just to get it on the road. That's BEFORE the body work.
But, boy oh boy - it does have a radio. I know because I turned it on the first time I tried driving it and had to run back to collect my brains, as in blown out of.
My younger son (now 16) has decided that the gray truck I drive is "too small" for him. He likes sitting up high in the van. Claims it has head room. (Well, he is 6'2".) This from the kid who trembles at the idea of touching a Hummer.
He now wants to practice driving........