Name That Car

While I resisted longer than my friend AT, I succumbed to the urge to buy a new car today. Perhaps it wasn’t a strong urge, per se. I’m pretty practical when it comes to cars. But it’s still fun to have a new car. We’ve driven our Toyota RAV4 since about 2002 and it’s been a fun car. But shnikes it’s small. As my two little ones get bigger, it’s just been untenable for them to ride in it. Their poor little tootsies just get too jammed up between the front seat and their car seats. And Alyssa has to ride in the front, something I’m not thrilled about since she’s only 9. She’s already bigger than some adults, but still. I have a Honda Odyssey, but that thing is a tank and only gets about 15 MPG around town. I can’t really use it as my main car in good conscience when we’re having another war for oil. So I got a Toyota Camry Hybrid. It’s supposed to realistically get about 40 MPG in the city and 38-39 on the highway. It’s a lovely sedan and all three kids fit in the back just fine with room to spare. I negotiated a good price with a minimum of stress. I think having three kids with you, bickering, spilling popcorn on the floor, one’s diaper hanging precariously low, gets the salesman down to his rock bottom price with a minimum of delay. I looked at the Toyota Prius which gets much better mileage even, but it’s just too small for the three of them in the back.

So I’ve had a tradition of naming my cars. Silly, I know. Perhaps I’ll grow up someday. Hopefully not. I had a $250 Subaru Wagon in college that I invited some friends (and a few drunk folks from the bar nearby) to come and paint. It ended up with peace signs and happy faces and stripes and whatnot. That was the “Love Mobile”. The next car I named was the first car Anna and I bought. A Dodge Neon. We named it “Levon” after the Elton John song. Then came the RAV4. “Ravioli”. The Honda Odyssey – “Homer”, both for the literary reference and the fact that it’s big, ugly, and clumsy like Homer Simpson. So now I have this hybrid electric car. It’s bright red. My current ideas for names are “Perkūnas“, after the Lithuanian god of lightning. Also “Indra“, the Indian god of lightning (ok, of weather and war, but I like the name) and “Illapa“, the Inca god of lightning (do ya sense a theme here?) Ian suggested “Lightning Electric Car”, perhaps a somewhat clumsy name, except that the acronym is LEC.

So I hereby announce the “Name That Car” contest. Submissions will be taken until midnight on March 29. If I end up using your name for my car, I’ll send you a batch of chocolate chip cookies (or some other culinary treat if, like me, you’re off of sugar and white flour). This could be as much fun as when Anna and I had a Name The Baby contest for Alyssa. Maybe I’ll just call my car King Waffle.