BRENTZILLA

Got me a new (okay, new used) car:

That’s right, biotches — it’s a 1996 Subaru Legacy, flavored with Outback. For now, I’m calling it “Adultmobile,” but this is temporary. Names ought not be inflicted without consideration. If I ever have a kid, I’m going to not name it for like, five years, and when I do, it will be “Rascal” or “Slutwitch” or “Heythar”– whatever his or her possibly multiple personalities demand.

Same goes with my cars. Witness my poor 1988 Honda Civic.

As those of you who are gluttons for having their eyes assaulted by my Twitter, the story is old. But the rest of you need to know that said Civic had three names.

The first: “Cinnamon.” I don’t know why. Sky blue, baby blue, whatever blue — it was not burnt brown-red or red-brown. Nor had it ever smelled particularly nice (though it has taken on the scent of Indian food, pizza and McD’s over the years). However, Cinnamon stuck…

…until three years ago, the first of many mystery dents began to crumple my car. The Civic often resided on a slowly creeping curve of an avenue, used by motorists as a shortcut. One or two sideswiped it.

Oh, and the old, old neighbor lady who finally gave up her drivers license after striking Cinnamon a pretty good one. Witnesses abounded but no one told me until long after she had passed away. She was sweet.

Oh, and the Asian kid who barely spoke English. I never contacted his insurance.

Oh, and the lady “teaching” her daughter to do a three-point turn, failing spectacularly right into Cinnamon’s rear driver’s side door. This horrible potatoey monster yelled at her daughter for several minutes, stared at the damage and drove off. Yeah, I watched it all. Nice lesson to teach your kid, lady.

A new name came about: “Katrina, the Natural Disaster.” Not particularly inspired, but I labeled the Civic that at the last moment as I walked a date to my car in an attempt to… what? Seem cooler than the guy who would otherwise be driving a battered Honda would be? Probably. In any case, she laughed, we hung out for awhile, we stopped hanging out.

But the dents came on. The parking-lot bangings by shopping carts (twice that I saw). the woman who tried to parallel park into my car’s spot (at least she replaced the mirror). The huge, low bowl on the roof that I created when packing my queen-size box spring on top of it (whenever it rained, a pond appeared). My Civic had become inexplicably attractive to entities that could damage it, and there was no hiding the fact that it took on the appearance of a crumpled beer can tossed away by some Midwestern kid into some dry creek on some summer day in 1987, left to rot in the sun and be pecked at by crows. “The Beer Can” became the Civ’s last and final name.

Last Friday, I put The Beer Can up on Craigslist for nearly nothing. Poor bastard had a cracked radiator, really bad brakes, a broken passenger seat lock, fluid leaks and a tailpipe that had drooped off.

I sold The Beer Can last Sunday, at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. The guy didn’t even test drive it — he just wanted The Beer Can for parts. Climbing into the Adultmobile, I watched him drive off into the still-dark morning, one brake light flaring to life as the Civic made one last turn.