A funny thing happens to older parents whose kids have grown up. Suddenly they find themselves with a very large house and a nicer car than they ever had when they were raising kids, when they may have actually needed a large house and a nice, comfortable car.

If I had grown up in the house that my parents own now, there would never have been a need for the barrier I often made with a box of Dixie cups to separate my belongings from my brother Van's underneath the bathroom sink. It would have been possible for me to be in the same room with my other oldest brother, Will, and not be accused of "looking at him." "She's looking at me, Mom! Make her stop looking at me," Will always said. But I didn't have many other places to look. When we all sat on the sofa, there was an invisible, yet well recognized, line of demarcation between "my space" and my brothers' "space." If I snored, they heard it across the hall in their bedrooms. And in the garage, if my roller skates got too close to their skateboards, forgetting for a moment that the two-car garage barely had enough room for a second car, let alone toys and sports equipment, I was doomed for a special form of brotherly punishment: having my Cabbage Patch Kid dolls hung from the ceiling fan with a string.

In my parents' new house, Van, Will and I could go a whole day without so much as having the slightest arm-hairs touch. That's a good thing, except that we aren't really prone to smashing each other's face into the sofa cushions anymore.

I am currently living with my parents in Smithfield, Va., while we (me and my children) wait for a house in Maine and Dustin finishes up his tour in Pensacola, Fla. My brothers don't live at home any more. That, coupled with my parents' new, larger house, means that I'm enjoying even more space than ever before.

Then, when Dustin came to visit us last weekend, he and I drove to an appointment in my mom's new car — a car that is, of course, nicer than any she had when she was raising us. It even has a GPS (Global Positioning System). Wouldn't that have been nice on family trips!

Dustin was at the wheel as we drove along in my mom's car, and the friendly female voice of the GPS kept giving us directions: "Turn left in 3 miles," "Left turn approaching in 2 miles," and then (after Dustin missed the turn) "Recalculating. Please wait." This, by the way, is the GPS woman's nice way of saying, "You missed the turn, Stupid!"

Dustin said he'd like to own a car like my mom's someday. I said that I'd like to own a white sofa, too, but these things just aren't possible while we still have little children at home. When we're older and have less people living with us, then we can have a big house, nice furniture and a fancy car.

At some point during our drive, Dustin missed another turn, and the GPS, I know, was struggling not to use profanities. We found ourselves in a not-so-nice part of town. People sat on porches outside homes that, no kidding, looked like they had bullet holes in them. In all my years of living in the Hampton Roads area, I had never been on this street. But I never had a car with GPS either, so I usually stayed on the roads I knew.

Somewhere along this road in the bad neighborhood, another fancy car approached. We could see a middle-aged woman behind the wheel. She looked just as scared as us. When our two cars passed, we waved at each other with the same restrained excitement that new mothers use when they see another mom/stroller combo at the mall.

I realized that the people sitting on their porches were staring at us and the other car. And I suspect they were thinking, "Why do all these nice cars come through our neighborhood these days?"

Although, really, what they were probably saying was, "Dude, that is so not their car. That's got to be their parents'."