Mitsubishi Mistake

Little Miss Sunshine is one of my favorite movies. It's partly because I love that quirky humor and relate to the loud, dysfunctional family antics. But it's also because every time there was a scene involving their van, it reminded me so much of my own car growing up. I refer to the car as the Mitsubishi Mistake. It was a bright white cargo van turned passenger mini-van that my parents claim they picked out because my sisters and I loved it. Why my parents made a decision to purchase a vehicle based on the opinions of four children ages 8 and younger, I do not know.

As a young child, I loved the thing. It could hold 10-15 people, and often did, on the way to school or the masjid. I am wondering what this must have looked like to all the blond-haired, blue-eyed parents and their kids: seeing 14 brown children (the entire minority population of my elementary school) file out of our studly van every morning. And no, most of us did not wear seat belts.

In middle school, I despised it. During a period in my life where fitting in and conformity were the way to go, the Mistake was the most mortifying thing ever. When we finally purchased another car, it was a Mazda. I remember thinking, 'even though it's a lot harder to spot that thing, I'm so glad my ride looks like every other car.' Before the Mazda, I was always able to spot my car in seconds flat.

As I grew older and being unique was way cooler than conformity, all of a sudden, I liked it again. My friends would say things like, "I love your van. It's so retro or something." Some of them were def being polite, but many were being sincere.

When I got to college, the Mistake started suffering from old age. It would go from 0 to 60 seconds in about 3 hours. All the crazy car scenes in the movie that I relate to came from this phase of the Mistake's life. The scene with the horn blaring non-stop as the family drove down the highway: happened to our fam as well. With the number of times that thing died on us, my sisters and I learned how to jump start a car, change a flat (not really the Mistake's fault, we just drove over a nail), and figured out the decent service, transmission, and body shops in our town.

The Mistake died toward the end of my college days, and now we drive more generic, safer cars like Civic's and Camry's. I'm not actually sure what happened to it. Someone said my dad used it for a trade-in when we purchased one of our cars. I'm not sure if I can believe that. As much as I loved that thing, I doubt anyone would offer money for it (esp in its geriatric phase). Another more sensational rumor floating around our family is that one day it spontaneously burst into flames. I don't buy that either. I believe a third rumor: my mom gave it to one of her employees who sold it for parts. The Mistake was an organ donor!

I've been working on a scrapbook over the break for my youngest sib. She just started her 2nd semester of college, and I wanted her to have something to keep her from getting too homesick. I have one page dedicated to our car, and sadly, I could not find a single pic of it.