The Van

I've been driving our Chevy Venture van for ten years.

Ten years.

I cannot remember the last time the check engine light wasn't lit. The ABS light came on about 5 or 6 years ago. Last year, the power-sliding door decided to become temperamental, and sometimes refuse to open with button-pushes, so the kids would have to yank on the handle with all their might while the other cars in the pick-up line had to wait. A few weeks back, the door got even more touchy, and after pretending to close all the way, would pop back out just a little with the DOOR AJAR warning lighting up another space on the dash. And then the red airbag warning light came on. It's hard to focus on the road with all the amber glow.

I'm not the sort of person that wants a brand-new vehicle with all the bells and whistles. In fact I still daydream about my old Toyota pick-ups, and am sure that if I they hadn't been totaled in one accident or another, I'd still be driving them. And while I kind of hope that the van can make it another 14,000 miles to 400k, I was about to throw in the towel Monday morning.

As we loaded up to head to school, I warned Z to stay off the door. Although she was buckled in, and the door was mostly shut, I didn't want there to encourage any freak accidents. I dropped Finley off, then Z, the door almost shutting between schools. And then, as the door started to close behind Joe, it freaked.

Like a little kid that was having a melt-down trying to decide between chocolate and fudge, it bounced back and forth on the rails, refusing to fully open or close. I put the van in park, hoping that would help the door make up its mind. But no. So I drove down the road with the door doing its dance until I found a safer place to park.

Turns out, some trim piece had slid out of place and was in the way. I ripped it off (who needs trim?), and sure enough, the door closed. All the way.

I can't decide if I'm mad I don't have a good excuse to buy a newer vehicle right now, or excited I still might be able to coax this piece of [steel] to 400k.

Sometimes it must be a drag to have a mom with a physics degree.

We were on the way to school this morning, a truck in front of us.

"There's a generator!" Joe announced, spotting the piece of equipment in the bed. My heart swelled a little with pride.

The sight of the generator must have set his wheels a-turning, because soon he was yammering about his new idea: In the event of a zombie apocalypse, he could take two electric generators and using them alternately to power the other one, and somehow end up with "infinite electricity." I missed a lot of the details, but as I have a good understanding of that pesky concept called the conservation of energy, I was pretty sure his idea wouldn't work.

After voicing my doubts, I asked him, "How does it create electricity? Does it use gas?"

"No."

"If it isn't using gas, how is it creating the electricity? Is there a motor, and if so, what is it powered by?"

"Electricity. It's an electric generator, Mom."

I then tried to explain to him that if one generator was using energy to power the other one, but you also needed to use that energy for other things (say, powering a light), you would lose the energy eventually- like pouring water back and forth from one glass to another while taking drinks.

He wasn't buying it, and was getting frustrated with me, because obviously, I didn't understand his genius idea.

After I dropped him off at school, I felt bad. Who was I to shoot down his ideas?

I remember not so long ago, discussing with a friend how great it would be to have wireless power. But, silly me, I thought it would never happen. But it exists. So who knows.

Sometimes, a kid can't (or won't) listen to his mom. That's okay. Someday, he'll come to understand the conservation of energy on his own. And someday, he will probably engineer something I thought would be impossible- because he dreamed big and ignored his mother's doubts.