The Van Door Story

About 2 years ago something really funny happened to us, and today for some reason I remembered that day. I thought, I need to record that story somewhere before I completely forget it. It was actually an unfortunate event, but it always makes me smile and laugh, and so I would like to have it recorded somewhere, so I won't forget it.

It was about 2 years ago. We were on our way to the girls' swimming lessons, but we had run out of swim diapers for Chloe, and so we stopped at a Zellers on the way to buy some. We had a lot of time, and so we decided we would all go into the store. We picked up the diapers and went to the line to buy them, only to find the line up was very long. So I said I would take the girls out to the van while Ben stood in the line to buy the diapers, instead of making the girls wait in the long line.

So, the three girls and I walked out to our van and I opened up the sliding door on the drivers side to let them all in. Isabelle and Lily sat in the back, and Chloe on the middle bench. I buckled Chloe up in her car seat and then went around to the other side, to use that sliding door to buckle up Lily in her car seat. I grabbed the handle of the sliding door to open it, pulled it, and off came the sliding door!!!! THE SLIDING DOOR FELL OFF OF THE VAN. I caught it with my other hand before it fell, as it was totally off the track and on its way to the ground. So here I was, standing next to our van in a parking lot holding the sliding door in my hands. The girls at this point were going ballistic, "Mom what did you do? You broke the door! What will we do?!?!" I didn't know what to do! I was just trying to figure out what had happened and why! Whats worse, the only other people in the parking lot were elderly women from the Senior Citizen's home across the street, pushing their walkers and holding their canes, completely unable to assist me in any way. I was so embarrassed, but I was also laughing because, well, it was funny!

I remember thinking at that point how grateful I was that Ben was there and that I was not alone with the girls. I rested the door up next to the van, got the girls out, and started walking back into the store. As we were walking up to the doors, out comes Ben. The girls ran up to him yelling, "Dad the van broke, the van broke!" He told me later he thought it had broken down, like it wouldn't start. I was just shaking my head no and laughing so much I couldn't even tell him what happened. I finally got it out that the door just fell off the van, and he said, "It just fell off, its just laying on the ground?" I just thought it was so funny, it made Ben smile too, and he started rushing back to the van.

He was able to maneuver it back on somehow, after about 15 min of trying. We didn't know what to do, and so we just went to the swimming lessons and then after drove home and Ben looked at it more carefully to see exactly what had happened. It had somehow rusted so badly that the little part that holds the door onto the track broke, and so when I opened it that last time, I actually pulled it right off the track. Because there were two sliding doors, we actually never got it fixed, but just always used the other door. That "bad" door just remained shut all the time. We sold that van for $500 about 4 or 5 months later and bought a new one. I remember as we were driving to swimming lessons that day, after it had happened, Ben looked over at me and said, "This is pretty funny!" and laughed too. It is so funny to us, always makes us laugh and makes us happy.