The Van

The godforsaken gray van. It had to be blogged about eventually. We have unfortunately come into the possession of the creepiest, most hideous toy in the wide world, but ironically, the stinking thing has us in a Catch-22 because it just so happens to be Silas' most favorite toy of all. The van first made its appearance in our home when Silas was teeny-tiny, and my sister Christa was dropping off a load of toys that my nephew had outgrown. The van is a little weird-looking but fairly innocent enough... or so we thought.

(Side note: Doesn't Silas look more like a little boy than a baby now? Sniff sniff!)

Anyway, the van has three people hanging out of the windows: a mother, a son, and a cheerleader daughter, whom you can see on the passenger side in the above photo. On top of the van are strapped such fun things as a hockey stick, a soccer ball, and a drum, which are all completely normal things to strap on top of one's minivan. The major problem with the van, and the crux of Silas' obsession with it, is this one tiny little black button that you push to unleash the worst song you've ever heard in your life. One movement of the finger and out blares a ridiculous guitar intro followed by the loud lyrics of a teenage female:

"Vacation all I ever wanted!/ Vacation had to get away!/ Vacation meant to be spent alone." (REPEAT ONCE AGAIN. YES. ONCE WASN'T ENOUGH.) 

The van lights up and the front end bounces up and down during the music. Well, as you can imagine, this is all very exciting to an 11-month-old boy, and he'll stop ANYTHING he's doing to come to that van when you play the song. Because we know that this toy has the power to bring Silas back from wherever he's headed, we of course choose to keep the van rather than send it with the garbage; it has us bound in that way. It comes in handy when I'm too lazy to follow him when he crawls out of the living area, it's a last resort in a cranky spell, and for those of you who remember when I blogged with that nasty stomach virus, the van suddenly became my best friend as I was alone with Silas while waiting for BJ to get home. I was lying on my back on the floor, moaning with nausea, and each time Silas decided that something in the kitchen seemed more interesting, "Vacation all I ever wanted! Vacation had to get away!" was employed. I sold my soul to the Devil himself that day.

One last thing that I'll say about the van. I honestly think that the people that produced this toy were perverts. If one looks inside the van, you can see the bottom half of each of the three people. Now, the boy and the mom are appropriately painted all the way down to their shoes. The cheerleader girl, on the other hand, is clearly missing her underwear:

I normally wouldn't think much of this, except for the fact that she DOES have shoes painted on, and both of the other characters do have their pants on. Does some obscure toymaker have a fetish about what is under a cheerleader's skirt? Hmm. 

I would dare other parents, aunts, and uncles to top this hideous toy, but even if you could think of something that's awful, all I would shoot back at you is that you've never seen this van. So let's just leave it at that.