The past couple of weeks, my minivan’s air conditioning has been acting up. Sometimes it would cool the car, but most of the time it just blew a lot of hot air. When it became clear that even in almost 100 degree Texas summertime, opening the windows and letting the “breeze” blow in was preferable to using the A/C, we knew it was time to get it into the shop.
Thankfully, Jay purchased an extended warranty some time ago, and this repair will fall under that coverage; what a blessing! Included in our coverage is a rental car, so after Honda checked my feverish van into the shop, a sweet man from the local Enterprise branch drove up to shuttle me over to the rental office so they could issue me a healthy vehicle to drive.
Turns out the pickings are slim this week at Enterprise. No vans nor SUV’s of any variety were available. They offered me a cute little red compact car, which I politely declined given I have four little children to tote around town. Call me uptight, but I would prefer to be able to obey the carseat laws even if I am not driving my own car. The only other options which would seat six people were a Chevy Silverado and a Ford F150. They asked me if either of those would work for our family.
Now, for those of you not in the know, those, my Friends are trucks. Large trucks. The likes of which yours truly has never driven, nor really ever dreamed of driving. I called Jay to ask if he might prefer one over the other (thinking he’d probably get a chance to drive it himself), and he said to go for the F150, so like the wonderful wife I am, I asked for the Ford.
Not ten minutes later, a veritable beast of a vehicle drove up in front of us, and my three boys went almost crazy whooping and hollering about how totally cool it was that we were going to get to ride in a humongous truck! Between the screaming and yelling, and the unpleasant and ever-growing realization that yes, indeed I was going to have to get behind the wheel of this monster and somehow safely ferry my crazy little children home, I started to feel a headache coming on.
We managed to drive the entire 2 miles home, with only a short detour for some ChikFilA, and gallons of milk along the way. In those two and a half miles, I learned that road lanes are not built for full size trucks. Nor are drive through lanes, or grocery store parking lanes. Or garages: upon arriving home I realized the behemoth would not fit in mine. So I parked it in what used to look like a very long driveway to me, but what is now swallowed up by the big white truck.
Despite the challenges of learning to drive something so much more massive, there is a plus side to all this. One just feels a bit more powerful behind the wheel of a giant truck. For one thing, you sit high up above most other vehicles on the road – ok, yes admittedly I am short enough that I can barely peer over the steering wheel to see the other vehicles on the road, but you get my meaning. If you can get beyond feeling large and cumbersome, I think it is possible to start feeling big and almost safer because of the heftiness of the truck body itself.
Then of course there is the unbridled delight from the younger set over Mommy’s new set of wheels, temporary though they are. Josiah especially loves calling it “Our new F150!”
And now, what you’ve all been waiting for…a few portfolio shots. Because you never know: some talent scout could very well be reading this little ole blog, and maybe, just maybe my truck modeling career will get jump-started! I hear there are a lot of 38-year old, mothers of four who enter the modeling world that way. Kudos to my 11 year old for her fine picture-taking skills!
