Tom the Vibe

This is not a new picture, or the events that caused the damage to my car did not happen recently, however, since time is relevant, one must define recent to prove that statement either true or false. I guess what I'm trying to say (write) is that I banged up my little Pontiac Vibe about two months ago.

Many years ago I lived in Europe, Denmark to be more specific, and while there I drove one of two cars, a nice VW Jetta, and a nice-if-you-like-those-kind-of-things VW van. We called the van "Brown Bread" because it was brown and shaped like a loaf of bread.

Several years after driving Brown Bread, I married a girl who owned a brown car. Plymouth called the car's color "Champaign" (I guess brown is too common for a high-brown automobile manufacture like Plymouth...). I don't know when, but eventually we began calling my wife's car (and the only reliable car since I kept driving VW bugs after coming home from Europe) "Brown Bread."

We kept Brown Bread for several years and it turned out to be a wonderful car. As our family grew, a friend gave us his aging '85 GMC Suburban--given because it caught fire and my friend's spouse vowed never to drive it again. It never caught fire with us in it, but we replaced the starter motor twice before we traded it in on a minivan and the suburban ended up blowing up when the dealer drove the vehicle to the auto auction. During the short time we owned the suburban we called it "Birthday Blue" because it was blue and my friend gave it to us on my birthday (one again, the lack of creativity in creating nicknames for cars evident...).

So several cars later, I buy my Vibe--basically a Toyota Corolla made by Pontiac. We decided to call my car "Tom," a degree of creativity sneaking into the naming process. We like Tom. Tom works. Tom is good.

But on a dark and snowy night about two months ago Tom found himself unable to stop in time and the result can be seen in the above picture. We still call the car Tom, but perhaps a more suitable nickname for the car could be "The Deer Slayer."

Goodnight all.