Bit of Ivory

So at my house, we name our cars. This has a long and glorious tradition. It all started when my mom bought her brand-new 1977 Toyota Corolla before she even met my dad. She named it Alex after Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Dad has, rather unfairly, been accused of marrying Mom for her car (and her piano), which we kept for years and years. We finally had to get rid of Alex in 2000, when the body started falling apart, although he still ran great. It was a sad day when he was towed away by the Kidney Foundation. (The piano has also been replaced, and Mom and dad are still married. )

The next car to recieve the treatment was our 1978 Oldsmobile station wagon, which we bought used in 1983. My folks had just watched the miniseries “Lillie” on Masterpiece Theatre, so it became Lillie Langtry. Mrs. Langtry (as she was usually called) survived until 1992, when, after having replaced practically everything on the car but the engine in order to keep it running (including the locks on the inside of the doors), we donated it to the Kidney Foundation and bought a brand-new Toyota Previa (We’d learned our lesson. Toyotas last. American cars don’t.). More on the minivan in a minute.

Our next car purchase was in 1996, when we bought a used 1992 Toyota Tercel to faciliate getting back and forth from high school. It has been christened Gussie Fink-Nottle, after a character in P.G. Wodehouse’s hilarious Jeeves books. Then, in 1999, we bought a used 1997 Toyota Corolla for me to use to communte to BYU, which was promptly named Lizzy, after Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Finally, my grandfather sold us his practically-mint-condition 1978 Chrysler Cordoba a little while back. We didn’t really want it, but Grandpa has Parkinson’s Disease and can’t drive anymore, and he wanted to sell his Pride and Joy to his oldest son before Grandpa had a chance to wreck it. So we bought the boat. Grandpa served on the U.S.S. Saratoga in World War II, so it seemed appropriate to name it Sara (the sailors called the original Saratoga that back in the day), although we usually call it “The Sara,” since it’s such a boat.

Which brings us back to the Previa. We’ve had the car since 1992, right? And in all that time, we haven’t thought of a good name for it. We’ve tried several– everything from Teakwood Underclutch (one of my uncle’s made-up names, he’s really good at it) to Strider. But nothing seemed to fit. On Saturday, we were driving up Parley’s Canyon on the way to Heber for a family reunion. Now, if the Previa has a fault, it’s that it only has a 4-cylinder engine, and is therefore rather gutless. It was having a hard time getting up Parley’s Summit. Gussie has the same problem. When we want Gussie to go faster, we usually say “Come on, Gussie! You can do it!” Mom attempted to say something similar, but it’s rather hard when the car doesn’t have a name. This brought up the old, familiar subject of a name for our poor, nameless (but beloved) minivan. I said “This is just the Car-That-Must-Not-Be-Named.” Which gave me a wonderful idea.

From now on, the Previa will be known as You-Know-Who.

Perfect.