Family Daze
You are what you drive takes on a new meaning
By Debbie Farmer
I don't want to get everyone excited, but an amazing scientific breakthrough has happened: researchers have figured out the difference between people who buy minivans and people who buy sport utility vehicles.
Yes, unbelievable as it seems, a team of experts has concluded, after years of expensive, painstaking research, that we are not just all middle-class, suburban couples with children. No, sirree. We are, in fact, deeply emotionally and psychologically different.
Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking "so what." And you are absolutely right, unless, of course, you happen to own one of these kinds of vehicles--as I do.
In fact, as an owner of a sport utility vehicle, I am amazed that anyone cares enough to spend all that time and money just to find out what type of person I am, especially when I could have told them in less than 15 minutes, for free.
Of course, I assumed the survey would say something such as, "suburban drivers of SUVs are practical, rugged and down-to-earth people with a deep sense of social and environmental responsibility." So you can imagine how surprised I was to find out drivers of sport utility vehicles, unlike minivan owners, are preoccupied with such important issues as, say, feeling sexy behind the wheel.
I'm not one to dispute scientific research, but the last time I felt sexy anywhere was sometime in 1982. Now, don't get me wrong. The thought of feeling sexy, while driving a car with mysterious, sticky blobs stuck to the side windows, a Barbie hanging on the rearview mirror and two children flicking gum at each other in the back seat, is intriguing. But somehow I don't think that's what they had in mind.
Next, the researchers found that a greater percentage of minivan owners are involved with their families than SUV owners. I know I shouldn't take this personally, but I can't help thinking it's their way of saying that while minivan owners are busy going to religious services, volunteering for nonprofit organizations and running PTA meetings, those of us who own SUVs are hiring a sitter and spending our evenings hanging out at nightclubs and seedy bars.
Then the survey goes on to report that SUV owners are self-centered, more prone to eat at upscale restaurants, and tend to work out more than minivan owners do. I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
For the record, let me just stop right here and say that when I bought my sport utility vehicle I wasn't thinking about escargot or getting into shape. I was thinking about more superficial things such as, say, gas mileage, safety and overall performance.
Well, I don't know about you, but I think the survey has raised some important issues that need to be cleared up. Such as why my friend, Shirley, who owns a minivan, goes to kick boxing class five times a week. Or why my friend, Lisa, a fellow SUV owner, is the leader of her daughter's Brownie troop.
Or why, for goshsakes, just the other day, Linda (an SUV owner) drove Sue (a minivan owner) to the school PTA meeting where they both volunteered to help at the book fair. TOGETHER. I mean, how do the findings explain THAT? They can't, I tell you. They can't.
However, it does prove what unscientific research has said all along: most minivan and SUV owners are suburban, middle-class, couples with children. Call me weird, but somehow that thought comforts me.
Debbie Farmer wrote Life in the Fast-Food Lane: Surviving the Chaos of Parenting .
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
