The chap in Laredo from whom we were supposed to be buying the Trans Sport freaked out at the last minute, abruptly deciding that he didn’t want to let us take the van to our mechanic until he had payment in hand, in spite of the fact that he had agreed to that arrangment two weeks earlier. (His emails became decidedly bipolar toward the end, veering abruptly from exclamation-point laden abuse in one message to contrite apologies in the next.) Since Laredo is a good three hour drive from San Marcos, and we were already a bit wary even before the breakdown began, we decided to call off that deal altogether.

Besides, holy cow, are Trans Sports ugly. When I play word association games, and someone mentions “Trans Sport,” the first thing to pop out of my mouth is “rhinoplasty.”

Instead we went up to Austin last Friday and found ourselves a Nissan Quest at one of the used car dealerships in the area. Though we ended up spending more for it than we would have for the Pontiac, it had fewer miles on it, seemed to be in fine shape, and was still a fair bit under the Blue Book price.

We’ve instituted a “no food” rule in hopes of keeping the van in reasonably nice condition. We’ll see how long we’re able to hold out against the ravenous tide of children.