New Vehicle

And it all came down too.... my bowling bag.

Ginormous Bowling Bag

Can you believe it?

A silly bowling bag.

I was in lust with this Sexy Beast.

Sexy Beast!

I really really really wanted one.

Other half, not so much. Sigh.

So I finally talked him into going to the Honda dealership to look at Pilots. I had already test driven one and I was not at all in lust with it.

I went during the day with semi-sick child in tow to have them look at my 2000 Honda Odyssey. I noticed all the bright, shiny new 2007 Odysseys on the lot. I had been avoiding test driving one since I DIDN'T WANT ANOTHER MINIVAN.

My old van isn't even this nice.

I had time to kill so I said to semi-sick child, "Do you want to test drive a minivan?"

"Sure," he said.

It was my undoing.

My old van was the LX model. It was only the second year that the Odyssey was a minivan. It was pretty much sans bells and whistles. It was the generic version of a minivan. All my friends have power doors, leather seats with butt bun warmers, dvd players, sun roofs.... ad infinitum.

So we get into a EX-L RES version with a dvd player (which I have no need for).

I was dazzled: comfortable, quiet, refined and ridiculously roomy. OMG I LOVE BUTT BUN WARMERS.

But the clincher was this: I could fit my bowling ball bag in it.

No room for bowling bag in the Pathfinder or Pilot. With the 3rd row seat up you have enough room for 7-8 passengers and their... drink cups. That's about it. You can get no luggage to speak of in there - maybe a ziploc bag with a handful of thongs in it.

Let's not even mention that the Odyssey EX-L version was about 5K cheaper than the Pathfinder and 2K cheaper than the pilot.

Let's not.

Let's not mention that the Honda dealer bent over backwards to appease me for the whole timing belt fiasco we went through last fall by giving me a ludicrous trade in for my old van.

Let's not.

Let's not even mention that Honda was having 0.9% financing.

Let's not.

Let's not even mention gas mileage.

Let's not.

All of these things conspired to make me the new owner of a 2007 Honda Odyssey EX-L minivan.

But mostly it was the bowling bag.

New van, sigh, still a van but a very nice van.