naming the inanimate

It may seem silly, but I like to name inanimate objects. This way, even when I'm "alone," I'm still surrounded by friends, or at least named things that seem friendly since they have names. I guess it's sort of like little kids naming their stuffed animals or dolls. But don't think for a minute that it's an immature thing to do. Naming things as a kid would doesn't make me a kid. You know, kids have good ideas sometimes.

The first thing I remember naming post-childhood was my first car. You always have big dreams about what your car will be. But in the end, you buy what you can afford. So of course, it's a bit of a letdown, but you still have your very own car, for the very first time. And your first loan. But nothing can replace that freedom of being able to take off anywhere you want anytime you want, because you have your own wheels. It was a 1996 Saturn sedan, copper colored. I thought, "She's (because cars are girls after all) the same color as a new penny." Thus, she earned the name Penny.

I have already written about my current set of wheels, which isn't mine at all, but still deserves a name: Nancy the Nautilus.

My first computer was graciously given to me by my parents. It was an old one. It had lots of problems and was possibly demon possessed. I called it Legions.

Then there was the Dell. It was new, also graciously given me by my parents. I don't think I ever named it. But it always worked good. (Did you know today's National Grammar Day, or some such nonsense?)

This computer is the first one I bought myself. It's a Toshiba. When I opened it up and turned it on for the first time, I saw the word "Toshiba" and thought of Japan. That made me think of Japanese people. I know several which I could have named this laptop after, but the only name that fit was Akira. I never told him that my laptop bears his name. I'm not really sure how he would take it. Incidentally, I looked up the meaning of the name Akira today. It means "bright." This will be important later.

At work I have another computer, purchased by The Seed Company. It's a Dell laptop. It is huge. Seriously, it must weigh 2 or 3 times as much as Akira (Akira the computer, not Akira the man - just assume all further references to Akira refer to the computer). One day, I was talking about that computer and the name Bertha just came out of my mouth. Because it's big, like Big Bertha. Bertha is a German name. It means "bright." I didn't know that when I named her.

Today, a new piece of equipment was parked at my desk. It is a Disc Publisher. It burns CDs and DVDs and also prints on them. So, no more sticky labels and trying to get them right on the discs. It has an arm that moves the discs from one station to another: input stack, disc burner, printer, output stack, and reject slot. This arm is called a "robotic disc transporter." How cool is that? There's a robot sitting on my desk right now. I will be nice to him so that he doesn't wreak havoc while I'm gone. His name is Braxton. Braxton means "Brock's town." And Brock means "badger." So you got to figure that Braxton actually means "the town of the badger." Why don't they just say that on the baby names website? It's like dictionary definitions which use words that no one's ever heard of before, and you wind up looking up 3 words just to find the meaning of one.