A Rechercez: Petunia

OK. I told you that my gold Toyota Solara--a very pretty car BTW and highly recognizable so everyone knows where I am at all times--is named Petunia. Now, I'm not prone to naming cars or other things. I do tend to come up with names of my own for people and if I start calling someone "What's his/her face" I am like so over them.

Petunia is not the kind of car that I would buy my self. This was all Mr.P.'s doings. Yes, this is another Mr.P. story. When I met him, I was driving a 5 speed 4WD pick-up that I had kitted out with a cover over the bed in order to sleep there while I was travelling around Canada working with farm women trying to save their family farms. I drove that truck from Newfoundland to Saskatchewan. He was driving a Chrylser New Yorker. When we got married he wanted me to drive his car and he took my pickup. That was OK since I still had something I could haul stuff in.

Then the New Yorker got rear ended so bad that it needed some chassis work and we were thinking that we really needed two 4WD living in the mountains, especially in winter. We also needed something that would handle hauling dogs. So, we got the green Grand Cherokee. My car and I loved. I could haul, it went in the snow, it handled well.

Now, if you will recall, CD and I got solid when Mr.P. started his trucking business (which I was against) and ended up in the hospital with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. (Don't think Mrs. P. ME wasn't spitting bullets.) So, there is my true love driving truck with a partner and working much harder than I approve in order to "buy me out of " my job as a professor (that's a whole nother story). The business was doing well until the price of gas shot up. It didn't help to find out that the partner was a crook (to be kind). That year 35,000 trucks were repossessed from owner operator truckers. That didn't happen to us (Mr.P. is smarter than that) but we were in debt for those damn trucks. (I know you are going, "what does this have to do with naming cars--hold on.)

The deal Mr P. made was we could get rid of the trucks, if we were to trade them in on a new vehicle. Mr.P. was going to get me a new car. I really did not want a new car but he was feeling bad enough as it was, so I went along with it. I was looking at Tundras when he picked the convertible which, let's be frank, is a sweeeet ride.So that's how Mr. P. had maneuvered me from a Mountain Woman to a Southern Belle vehicle wise. He can be crafty sometimes. And, as CD has pointed out to me on numerous occasions, when I'm happy he's happy. You can't help but love him and I sure do.

One November we are going on a tour of potteries and I think "We will be on some dirt roads and some major pot holes," so I say we better take the Jeep. Yup, we're going up this verra, verra long laneway in the middle of be all and splattering mud all over the place and I say "I'm glad we brought the Jeep. Petunia would not like this." She's been Petunia ever since.

Now isn't that a better story than just saying we named her Petunia because she doesn't like to get muddy?