Entry 16:

Dearest Goldberg,

Do you remember when you and the very pregnant Miss Pamela and your two little Goldies came over to my house last summer for bagels and lox and you mewled about the plan to ditch the Explorer for the Odyssey? You, the Ultimate Manly Man, evicted from a tough-ass' SUV for a life sentence in a sissy-ass' minivan? (As I recall, we discussed this before news reports revealed the Explorer to be a death trap.) My view was that minivans are incredibly cool, but that if you got one you should slam it.

No, not drive it into a wall. "Slamming" means aggressively customizing your Honda (the way that West Coast kids do) until it's a high-performance rice-rocket: Trick out the engine; install a beastly exhaust system; replace the stock red tail lights with clear ones (and red bulbs!); lower the frame; cherry-out the paint job; install ground effects; skinnify the tires; and prettify the interior. In short, trade a rollover death trap for an automotive bullet that kills in much more interesting ways. I haven't seen a slammed Odyssey yet, but you could start a trend in your yuppie D.C. neighborhood and simultaneously preserve your manhood. I'm sure Pamela will approve, as slamming rarely costs more than $10,000 or $20,000.

I'm very happy to see that I wrote you into a gastrointestinal event this week. Taunting you from afar, though, wasn't as fun as provoking you in person, but it proved much more deadly. If you're still alive when you read this, please call or e-mail. We need to go out cruising in your new dream machine pronto.

Love,
Jack