These are two of the reasons why my insurance company decided to total the '02 Odyssey. The other one is napping.

Actually while that makes a lovely sentiment, the real reason is Kerry. In our little town we have an auto-body repair shop that has been owned and operated by the same gentleman since 1964. His grandchildren have taken swimming lessons with our kids at the city pool, and we've found ourselves more than once on the sidelines of the same soccer or baseball or football game.

After the collision last week, our van was towed to Kerry's where he began personally tearing it down to determine the extent and nature of the damage. Because the car still retains much of its value (thanks, Honda) the insurance company would rather repair it. But after getting into it, Kerry decided that too many major systems had received too much damage to ever be reliable once back on the road. Despite the fact that he has absolutely nothing to gain by recommending a "total loss", he has gone to bat with the company to convince them to "total" the vehicle, thus eliminating whatever he might have earned by way of the repairs. He told me that he's happily driven a lot of vehicles that were "totalled" in his day, but he wouldn't let anyone in his family drive this car if it were to be repaired. In fact, he said if the company won't total it, they're going to have to find some other shop to repair it, because he wants to be able to sleep at night.

We're just as happy, since it would have taken 6-8 weeks..., WEEKS people! to repair, during which time we'd be spending summer without a car. So now we're in the market for a new car. Any suggestions?