My Cars: The Dolt, The Freshcort, Tadh, and ???

Last month, we paid off a car loan. The Subaru Outback was the third car I ever owned.

The first car was a Dodge Colt given to me by my father while I was still in college.  He always called it "The Dolt", a word whose meaning eluded me until someone gave me the same name and I had to find a dictionary.  The Dolt was a great car that got me through a Syracuse winter and carried me and my belongings to Boston soon after graduation.  It lasted until the week before Thanksgiving of that year when it died forever.  Fortunately, it expelled it's last exhaust for eternity when I pulled into the work parking lot one morning.  Even more fortunate, is that my place of employment was uphill from a nearby junkyard.  With the help of a coworker, I got the car rolling and steered right into it's final resting place. RIP The Dolt.

On Thanksgiving break, my father (who sold cars at the time) helped me purchase a new car.  After a holiday visit with my family, I drove my new Ford Escort back to Boston.  "The Freshcort" was a great little car that took me to work, the bars, and recreational sporting events.   It was always good to me, but I worry that I did not reciprocate.  One particular incident has left me feeling especially guilty.  After a minor road rage incident, I parked the Freshcort and went into a restaurant for dinner.  Upon returning to my beloved compact car, I discovered that it's completely functional and sporty spoiler had been taken. Removed from the car.  The car could only get so fancy, so I decided to have the spoiler replaced instead of having the holes patched.

Eventually, the Freshcort lived long past it's warranty and we needed a bigger car to accommodate our growing family.  We bought a 1999 Subaru Outback.  It wasn't used, but rather pre-owned.  Apparently, there's a difference.  I was glad that my car wasn't used, but knowing that it had been owned previously did not compensate for the daily reminder that it had 45K miles on it when we bought it.  

My wife enjoys naming inanimate objects and decided that her car Margot needed to know more about the hunk (of Forest Green metal) that was parked next to her all night.  Therefore, "The 'Ru" was renamed "Tadh".  Unfortunately I cannot explain the origin of this particular name, but I can confirm that the 'h' is not silent and is rather emphasized.  In other words, the name of the car is to be pronounced like TAD-HUH.

December was the last month of a six year loan.  We received the last bill for Tadh and paid it in full.  In January, we received a new bill for $0.55.  It must have cost more than that to send us the bill, not to mention what we spent to send them the check.  The postage alone, between the bill and the check, is $0.84.  In fact, someone at the loan servicing company should have simply placed a couple stamps right on the bill and rerouted it internally to the appropriate people.  Or even better, someone could have run out to their car during a smoke break and looked under their floor mats for some coins.  

I was going to call and dispute the bill, but decided that my time was worth more than $0.55 (truly a new revelation).  So, we wrote the check for the bill for $0.55 that came a month after we paid off our large six-year car loan.

What made me laugh even harder was the note about loan consolidation on the bill.  

Let's review.  'Overboard' is sending someone a bill for 11 nickels.  And although we have a number of loans, we only have trouble keeping track of the ones we've already paid off but for which we continue to receive bills.  I was tempted. I was very tempted to call them before I mailed the check to ask them to consolidate this loan with the one I will take out to pay some dead rich African guy's assistant to ensure timely execution of my recently discovered inheritance.  And when I receive the bill for this new loan, I would pay it back with coupons for diapers.  They'll need them given that they're full of.... well, let's just leave it at that.

Coincidentally, I'm buying a new car this week.  What in the world should I name it?