By Which She Will Be Known On The Records Of The Church

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I have a stupid habit of naming inanimate objects. My first car, a powder blue, vinyl-topped 1978 Pontiac Bonneville was dubbed The Blue Whale. After that, I drove The Cherry Tomato. These are the first in a line of cars that included The Hulk, Black Beauty, Snow White, Goldilocks, Goldilocks 2, Goldilocks 3 and Babe, The Blue Ox.

Now that I think about it, what I have is a dumb habit of naming my car based on what color it is. None of these is a proper name for a thing. First of all, things should only be given a name if they are sleek, or beautiful, or powerful. Things like race cars, airplanes and naval vessels. Not 1985 Honda Civic sedans.

Also, I should probably not ask my kids for their advice when naming the three gold minivans in a row we've owned.

So, when it came time to name my new guitar I decided I really needed to be more selective. I didn't want to end up calling it Balsa Chorus or Rosie Rosewood or Wonder Boy. Otherwise I'd end up only being able to play three-chord songs by The Smith's.

I was careful not to rush into anything but after a couple weeks I just couldn't think of anything. Until this weekend when Donna casually turned to me and said, "you should name your guitar Penny."

Penny.

It's an old-timey woman's name that invokes images of pin-ups painted on the side of World War II bombers. It's also almost exactly what Donna paid for it. It's perfect.

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