My wife and sister are both vehicle-namers. My wife purchased our car a year before we were married and named it "Howie." It's a 1987 Honda Accord. I try to joke when I see other Hondas and say, "look, it's Howie's friend Heidi Honda!" But she says, "no, that doesn't look like a Heidi."

My sister named her car "Sweetums." I presume she named it after the Muppet character. It's a really clunky-looking '81 Honda Civic hatchback. When she bought it, it had been in an accident and the guy had replaced the driver's side fender with a junkyard part, so it had blue fender while the rest of it was maroon. She bought a bunch of maroon spray paint and repainted the whole car to be the same color. I remember her saying after she painted it that she almost wished she hadn't done it, because before it had more "character."

I took care of the problem for her. About a year and a half ago, I borrowed the car to run an errand for my mom, and had an accident. The *same fender* got smashed in, as well as the hood. So we got some more junkyard parts to replace them, and...you guessed it. They were blue.

-Gri"that was a rabbit trail wasn't it?"shny