Something strange landed in my family room.

It’s been staring at me for days, menacingly.

I assume that some kind soul assembled it while I was in the hospital giving birth to the new baby, but I really can’t be certain. It looks as though an alien spacecraft placed it there, but it seems the only apparatus the thing doesn’t have is an anal probe. I’m not turning my back to it just in case.

It’s a double stroller.

If you’ve never had an experience with this beast, let me describe it to you. It’s about 28 feet long and weighs 795 pounds. It’s a super stretch model, so it has more cup holders than a movie theater and a fully stocked mini bar of juice boxes. It has two seats for the children, but I don’t know where the coachman is supposed to sit as the only thing that could possibly pull this chariot is a full team of steroid-fed Clydesdales.

I suppose I’ve never had to use such a vehicle before since there is such a large age difference between my kids, and as one would stroll, the other would walk. But now that we have two divas in training whose feet can’t touch the ground until clad in a designer shoe, my need for the Graco rickshaw is evident. Nonetheless, it confuses me. I can’t imagine how such a monster doesn’t run on some type of fossil fuel.

On the box, it claims the stroller is “collapse-able,” but after trying to fold it, I am not sure if that refers to the actual product, or the woman who tries to push it through the mall for 10 minutes. I don’t know exactly how one would get this into the back of a car without a complicated system of pulleys and counterweights. It’s got more cargo room than that of the SUV I’m trying to put it into—sort of like attempting to put Russian nesting dolls together in reverse.

Before taking it out on the open road, I decided I had better take it for a test spin around the neighborhood first. Yesterday afternoon I attempted to walk about a block to the nearby pond to feed the ducks with the little ones. So after obtaining my CDL license, we headed out.

It took 4 ½ hours. One way.

The upside is that in addition to losing the remainder of the pregnancy weight, I listened to the unabridged version of Finnegans Wake on my iPod. Twice.

As I affixed the crampons and rappelling cable that I helpfully discovered in the cargo hold, I wondered if this item would find its way into the useless baby product closet along with the sling and diaper wipe warmer. Or perhaps we’d just take it out for special occasions like truck convoys and tailgate parties.

After we finally returned home and canceled the Amber Alert, I double-parked the double stroller with all 3 axels exactly where I had found it in the family room where it has remained ever since.

It, like its exhausted and frazzled driver, is completely out of gas.

©2007 Tracey Henry

Divamail me! Divamail@SuburbanDiva.com.