Monday, May 02, 2005

Go With the Flo.

My auto has a first name. It's F-L-O. My auto has a second name. It's F-O-R-D.

Ashamed to admit it but yes, when I purchased my car I christened her with the name "Flo" - which by the way is NOT short for Florence in this case. 'Tis just Flo.

"But wait" you ask, "why did you name your car? And why did you name her.. er.. it with a moniker suitable only for a senior citizen?"

Kind of simple, really. I've only owned two cars in my lifetime. The first - a '92 Subaru Loyale which I owned for less than a year, was given to me by my sister when she upgraded. Upon handing me the title and keys, she wiped away a small tear and said, "Take good care of Sammy." I voiced concern, much as you probably did when reading the first few sentences of this post. She explained to me that regardless of how awkward it may seem, naming cars is not a very uncommon practice. There are only two rules when naming: #1) By default, the car is the opposite gender of the owner so you should name it accordingly. #2) The first letter of the name must match the first letter of the cars make... i.e. "Ida Isuzu" or "Bartholomew BMW" - names like "Eduardo Volvo" are not allowed.

I had a few problems with this. The first and most obvious is that I am a male and my sister is (duh) a female - yet here she was handing over the reins to a male vehicle. While thankful for such a gender-neutral name such as "Sammy", I was still puzzled as to whether or not my car would have to undergo a sex-change operation. She assured me that no, that was not the case - that it's the cars original owner that determines whether it's been blessed with the X or Y chromosome. This doesn't change regardless of how many times the car changes hands. The next problem had to do with naming it after the make of the vehicle rather than the model. For example, you could name your car "Oliver Oldsmobile" but that didn't tell you anything about the car. Was it a 98? An Alero? A Bravada? While model naming is ideal, there is one considerable difficulty - namely that many models are numbers rather than names, which simply won't work. I mean let's face it, "Theresa 325si" both sounds dumb and is a mouthful. Your vehicle is likely to get teased with a name like that.

And so, it was up to me to see out Sammy Subaru's remaining days. He served me well in the last year of his life - even if his parts constantly broke down. When he finally went to that big junkyard in the sky back in 2002, I mourned for a few weeks before finding another beloved vehicle. Upon settling with my current Ford Focus ZTS (great car despite the el cheapo reputation, by the way) I had to dub her with a name I felt reflected her personality and that also began with an 'F.' Farrah? No - reminded me too much of Farrah Fawcett - she's annoying. Fiona? Too slutty. Fatima? Fawn? Oh, puh-LEEZE. No - in the end I decide to go with Flo, not short for Florence, which while not ideal is certainly better than the aforementioned options and is a nice play on words ('flow' meaning game, skillz, and general macking ability.)

Why do I mention all this? Because Flo cost me a good bit of money today in new tires. Thanks to the various potholes and road hazards created by the ultra-efficient City of Boston snow removal team, I have one defective tire and one almost completely bald. Rather ironic that I should purchase said tires on the same day I paid my $95.00 excise tax - a tax that is supposed to go directly towards road repair. But in any case, there's no avoiding it - such are the perils of driving in the city - and m'lady is most certainly worth it.

(P.S. - Great song suggestions so far - keep 'em coming. There's a new track up there now, and you can look for it to be changed fairly frequently as I'm always listening to something different. I'll start incorporating your suggestions in a few days. Ciao.)


3 Comments:

Blogger Eric said...

Liar. I named your car Vera Volvo because I was under the impression it was your fathers car before it was yours. Clearly I was mistaken... I should have named it Virgil or Vidal - or perhaps Vlad.. Those were the best names I could come up with on short notice... I'll have to do some digging and see if I Can come up with a "v" name that means 'dirty and unkempt.'

7:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

memories...Sammy was a good car, wasnt he? Served us well since he was a reconstructed "Total Insurance Loss (1993 roll-over)".
Though I was forced to buy a battery pack to self-jump on those bitterly cold New England Days. Not a fun thing to do getting off work @ Midnight in Roxbury...

10:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As always, a post brimming w/ tantilizing information. What's in name? A lot it seems as I am considering which car I will purchase when I move to the left coast. You have given me much cud to chew on, young Jedi.

12:54 PM  

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