One of our favourite manly traditions is the calling of the front seat.  Men and boys all over the English-speaking world can be found racing out of doors shouting, “Shotgun!”  At our house, though, the mom and dad always take up the left seat and shotgun positions, leaving only the middle and back row positions open, but alas! those seats have no awesome nickname or protocol for calling them.

So we have adapted the shotgun protocol to the exigencies of our mini-van.  In honour of World War II bomber crews, we have christened our two middle row positions “waist gun” and our three rear positions, “tail gun.”  Our boys and girl may daily be found sprinting out the front door shouting, “waist gun!” “tail gun!” and that’s just the way we like it.