Naming of a Car

Before I get to the naming of my car, this Blog is called Afro on the Rocks, so I should probably give ya’ll a little bit of booze talk too right? While writing this I am enjoying The Pogues Irish Whiskey made by West Cork Distilling. Working with the Irish Punk Rock Band The Pogues, West Cork blended 7-10 year old Single Malt and 7 year old Grain Whiskey to make this slightly smoky but still creamy Whiskey. Hints of smoke up front give it a bolder characteristic than usually found in Irish Whiskey. Richer notes of apricot and butterscotch add a creaminess to the libation while lean notes of vanilla bean add to the richness without adding sweetness. The smokiness and fruit blend well together and linger nicely on the tongue where a creamy pillow has been laid for them to rest on. The butterscotch becomes a little more toasted on the finish, adding some of the oak qualities to the drink. Super smooth and a lot going happening on the palate; always a good but dangerous combination. Now, let me tell ya'll about my car!

In your late 20s life starts getting real. This year I have a total of 5 weddings to go to, I have had 8 friends have a child in the last 7 months and I have some friends who are even buying houses! I know the fun new saying is “Adulting is hard”, but I have friends who show that to be false. Even I have done a little bit of growing up in 2017. My interest in politics have hit an all-time high, I am now in my second year of paying a life-insurance plan and as noted in another post Goodbye Old Friend (http://afroontherocks.blogspot.com/2017/03/goodbye-old-friend.html) I have bought a new(er) car. And the more time I spend in my new car, the more I wonder “What am I gonna name it?” 

The tradition of naming your vehicle has been passed down through generations, a process that gives a nonliving object an identity or soul even. Naming a car is a big deal, it will be the base of all things that will happen in your car until you sell it or it heads up to that Big Auto Garage in the Sky. Or it will just rust in a landfill, depending on your feelings about Car Heaven being real or not. Out of all the Adulting my friends are doing, I think having kids is the biggest deal to me. Kids change your whole life, because you are now in charge of this other person and their whole wellbeing. Anything they need, you pay for, anything that is a result of them, you are responsible for and it is your job to ensure that nothing happens to them. As I’m driving around and thinking, it occurs to me that my car has some similarities to having a baby. And then it hit me, like the battery spark that starts my car, I came up with its name. 

Now when I first got the car I was thinking of naming it Jimi, as in Jimi Hendrix. Mainly because it is black, kind of a Hippie and rocks. But that is far too cheesy for me to say on a regular basis. So I stopped thinking about the name until the other day when the spark hit me. Because I now have this car, I have an extra expense in a car payment. Much like if you have a baby, you have extra expenses in food, diapers, baby proofing and all the thousands of other things that go into raising a child. I had an unexpected bump up in my car insurance due to my new car. And yea, I knew it would go up, but I didn’t think the jump from a 93’ Camry to a 14’ Prius C would be THAT much! Just like when you have children, there are unexpected costs, again referring to the THOUSANDS of things needed to raise a child. And I now do not go months without washing my car like I used to with my Camry. Just like as a parent, you can’t let your kid go days without washing. And besides just adding responsibilities, there are some characteristic similarities between me and my car.

 

Much like me, my car isn’t going up hills very fast. It just isn’t built to move that fast and I haven’t been built like that since well, it’s been a minute ok? My car has been misidentified as someone else’s car before. I also have been misidentified on many occasions; last weekend a guy in Vegas asked me if he could take a picture with me and kept calling me Quest Love. Like me, my car is kind of a Hippie. While it is a hybrid and uses battery power to conserve its gas use, it still uses gas. So it’s trying, but still not fully there. Just like how I recycle all that I can, get mad at people who water their lawns more than twice a week (AND during the day), support smaller businesses over big chains, believe in being who you are and not allowing anyone to tell you otherwise, I still let my water heat up before I get into the shower. We both have the right idea, just not totally committed. And we’re both surprising sizes; everyone I have had in my Prius-C has talked about how comfortable it is inside for thinking it was such a small car, so more room than expected. Just like I, a person that was born 2 months early, who weighed 3 pounds, am surprisingly big for what people expect from a premature baby. 

After making these connections (some may say farfetched) the name of my car made so much sense I knew it was the right name; Junior. In the future, when I’m asked why I named my car Junior, I may give them the whole reasoning behind it. But given that most people won’t want to listen to all of that I just wrote, I’ll just tell them; “Cause it’s the closest thing I want to a kid right now.” And that won’t be completely untrue.