Seven Seats: Road trips, concert caravans, and the car that was always full

For a while before I finally traded in my last mommy car, I had been eyeing two different vehicles. Both were sleek, sporty five-seaters — grown-up cars, fun and sexy cars, cars that made perfect sense for a woman whose children were grown. Each of them had a seven-seat sibling. And every time I went to test-drive the five-seater, I found myself drifting toward the larger one.

My husband and friends were clear: I no longer needed seven seats. The kids were older. They had their own cars. One was five hours away, and the other was at college. Logically, they were right; a five-seater was plenty.

But logic has never been the whole story.

The thing is, I almost always had all seven of my seats filled.

Kids were easier and more fun in multiples. Mine were always happier and better behaved with a friend along, so my rule was simple: the more the merrier. Movies, dinner, day trips, the beach, the lake, concerts, vacations, amusement parts there was always room for one more. Or two. Or three.

What I loved was not just the company. It was the car itself, transformed into something alive. I loved the laughter that would spill over the seats. I loved the stories being told in the back, the ones I was only half meant to hear. I loved the group games on long highways, the debates about music, the moments when everyone would go quiet because the right song came on.

Even after my kids got their own cars, mine would fill up again. Trips to New York City.  Trips to the beach. Trips to Montreal. The plans would start with two or three of us, and the next thing I knew, I would have a full car.

My son and I would have tickets to a concert in Boston, and a few days before the concert, the texts would start: “__________ wants to come. If they buy a ticket, can they join us?” Very rarely did we pull out of the driveway with an empty seat.

Six hours round-trip. Three hours of stories on the way there, three more on the way back, and then, best of all, a hotel room floor covered in sleeping bags and kids who were far too wired to sleep, replaying every moment of the night at full volume.

Those were the times I knew I would miss. Not the events themselves, but the in-between: the hours in the car, the pile of them on the floor, the way they could turn any ordinary trip into something worth remembering.

I was about to sign on the dotted line for the seven-seater when my daughter called.

She reminded me, gently, lovingly, with just a hint of amusement, of how much I had complained about parking a large SUV in New York City when I came to visit her. The circling. The garages. The stress.

I waivered then signed for the five-seater.

It is a beautiful car. I love it, but I just might have to rent a van for the next concert or trip to the city to get my fix of my kids and their friends.