New

About 15 years ago, a friend of mine loaned me a string of pearls to wear to my nephew’s wedding. I liked the pearls so much my husband offered to buy me some for Christmas. Unfortunately, before Christmas, his old car, which had well over 100,000 miles on it, began developing a series of problems and it became apparent he needed a new car, which meant no expensive Christmas present. I preferred having husband drive a safe vehicle to wearing pearls to pick him up at the side of the rode when he broke down, so a new car it was. I named the car Pearl. 

Eventually he did buy me the pearls. 

About five or so years ago, we started looking for new patio furniture. The furniture we had is made of steel mesh with a rust resistant powder coat of paint that finally began to rust. I had bought the furniture a bit at a time from a chain furniture store: first the oval table and six dining chairs, then a glider and armchair seating group, then a chaise longue*, and finally a baker’s rack to hold pots of plants and the little decorative garden ornaments that I love to buy because anything outside no one expects you to dust.

John had the dining set sandblasted and primed one year for my birthday and he painted them, but the paint has long started to blister. So we decided to look for cast aluminum furniture and settled on a table and chairs and a seating group.

Naturally, at that point Pearl, who was getting on in years, decided to have the vapors and once again John was looking for a new car. This time I named the car “Fern”.

A year or so later we began talking about moving to Texas, so it didn’t seem advisable to buy heavy, expensive garden furniture before we got there. Then the house didn’t sell, which was just as well because our son moved from Texas to Europe, and might be there another year. The furniture hasn’t been getting any younger, of course, so we went shopping again.

I’m not sure whether the price of furniture has been going up or my memory has been going down, but the amount I thought was going to cover the dining set, love seat and armchairs, just covered the oblong table (larger than our old one) and dining chairs at the 20% off sale price. So we bought them, and are going to buy the other pieces one or two at a time as we can. There’s a sale coming up around Memorial Day and another one at the end of October.

Of course, in the meantime, my car is 12 years old. That raises a big question. How do you name a car after a chaise longue?

*It is, too, spelled that way. It means “long chair” in French, although my translator app renders it “deckchair”.