Naming names.

I have a crippling habit of tendency to give names to inanimate objects.

I should probably stop, but Keri gets attached to things, m’kay?

So a little over a week ago when GiGi, my beloved Samsung Galaxy S3 started having serious issues functioning, I couldn’t contain my concern. (I’m not pointing any fingers at what caused her illness, but I’m pretty sure it rhymes with “smelly jean sore point tree.” If that means nothing to you, it’s ok… not the point anyway.)

She was fading fast, and no amount of the phone version of using Doctor Google was really helping.

I had to stop the powercycling madness.

So, after one last night with her sleeping on my chest, I took her down to the Sprint store and had her put down. There were tears, I can’t lie. (Mostly because there were also witnesses. Lots of witnesses.)

I suppose it is best not to acknowledge the depth of my phone obsession by giving the device a name. Lesson learned?

HELL NO.

I emerged from the Sprint store with Samy the S4 all activated and full of GiGi’s information essence, beginning the story anew. (Mommy loves you Samy. )
THE QUEEN IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

It isn’t a new story. Not even close. In 1981 my family got a brand spanking new Ford Courier pick up truck which we promptly dubbed “Freddie Ford.” Freddie was a good little truck and when I got my license over 10 years later, he was my first car.

But teenage Keri was wildly mildly unprepared for the responsibility of driving, and so both Freddie and I ended up rolling into a cow pasture outside of Boulder just a few weeks before the start of my sophomore year of high school.   He wasn’t really totaled, but he wasn’t drivable either. So he sat on one side of the family garage for months, his various engine liquids leaked out from around his headlamps and made it look like he was crying.  I would pass him each day, and the guilt regarding his condition would be refreshed.  Oh Freddie, I am so sorry for what I did to you. You were a good family member and I took you down.

:::pausing to look for tissue:::

Years later I got my first Ford Escape, and in honor of Freddie, I named him (or rather my cousin did, I believe, because freak runs in the family,) “Frederico Escapé. ”

Now, after years of driving Escapes, my time with Frederico Escapé III grows short. Alas, Ford went and jacked up the body style of the Escape so much that Frederico Three’s name will retire with him as I move into a new era of vehicle choice.

Which makes me feel guilty about this Frederico, and those that came before, and even for the incident in the cow pasture all those years ago with Freddie the Family Ford.

I am forsaking them. I just know it.

It is this thought process that confirms that I probably shouldn’t name inanimate objects. Things aren’t people. That car does not feel bad because you are heartlessly throwing it over trading it in, Keri.

Really.

Hmmm….

What’s a good name for a Jeep?