A Bachelor, A Van , and A Child-seat

Bachelor

A man who is not married.

Van

It is a car with seven or so seats with at least one sliding door on the side. Much more like a TownAce or HighAce in Myanmar.

Child-seat

In the United States, it is mandatory to use child seats for children under 6 years of age or 40 pounds of body weight. We can neither let those children sit on driver's lap nor sit in the lover seat. I was surprised when I learned about that law because as a kid I used to sit on my dad's lap while he was driving. Besides, lover seat is the privilege spot in the car and only the VIP in the family is allowed to sit there.

But, there are reasons behind this child-seat law. Statistics showed that lover seat is the most dangerous place in a car followed by the driver seat. Why is that? Because drivers love themselves more so than their lovers who sit in lover seats. When accident happens, driver tries to save his/her own ass and it could inadvertently hurt the person in the lover seat more. Too bad, huh? Another fair reason is that driver has more time, though it may be a split of a second, than other passengers in the car right before the accident. So, s/he can prepare her/himself to a safer posture. On the contrary, the person in lover seat may be unaware of the situation and unprepared. As a result, s/he suffers more.

Then, air bags came along to save those beautiful souls. While air bags save lives, they can also hurt people. If it is a child, they can even kill. That's why kids are not allowed to sit in any of the front seats of a car.

They all come together

About a month ago, my friend's family arrived from Myanmar. Maung Min Thant is a bright and yet talkative 2 year old son of my friend. To pick him up from the airport I had to find a child-seat. We were fortunate that another friend of mine whose kids were grown up gave me a child-seat. From then on, that child-seat occupies my car's back seat. Then, the van came. A Burmese couple had their van broke down and they didn't want to bother fixing it. So, they said they would give it away. Me and two other friends decided to fix it though we were not so sure what would come next. Luckily, the car became usable after spending $600 or so. We swapped vehicles and I ended up using the van. My close friend - father of two - commented that even he didn't use a van because it is a trade mark (in the US) that you have many kids. OMG .... I didn't know that.

Now, I have a van with a child-seat in it. How could people believe that I am a bachelor? :(