Occupy My Van

The other night, Adam and Braeden left to go home teaching.  A few minutes later, I left for book club.  I walked out my door and instead of seeing my beloved van, my gleaming chariot, I saw Adam's car sitting forlornly in the driveway.

They had taken the van!  The van with heated seats.  The van that's so pleasant to drive I love doing errands.  (OK, maybe that last bit's not true.)

They'd left the decrepit car that you need instructions to drive because the gas pedal sticks and you have to carefully engage the parking brake using a prescribed method of simultaneously lifting and gingerly pulling on a spring because it's broken.  The same car Adam will drive until it's absolutely un-drivable. (Because he's like that.)  The car that hasn't even had an engine since 2006 and instead uses hamsters running on a wheel for power.  (OK,  maybe that last bit's not true.)

I called Adam immediately.  "You took the van?"

(Yes, there's the whole what's-mine-is-yours-thing but that is my van and the car that looks at me with contempt is Adam's.)

Adam apologized for taking the van, he'd forgotten I'd be leaving.  I said it was OK. (I'm so magnanimous sometimes!)  Adam said, "Now you'll know how the other half lives."

I could hear Braeden chanting something in the background.  I said, "What's he saying?"

Adam said, "He's saying, 'We are the 99%!'"

So I realized then that the Occupy Movement, which has so far been only in cities as far as I can tell, has infiltrated the suburbs.

It has infiltrated my van.