Black Magic

At long last we have our 'new' car. We picked it up last week, after nearly a week of Michael dropping me off at work each morning and me hitching a ride home each night because the rental car had to be returned the previous Friday. (Long rabbit trail potential here: did you ever stop to consider how much better off we are than our parents? In so many ways, we are standing on their shoulders. I was all of fifteen years old, I think, before we got a second vehicle in my family, and here Michael and I take our independent forms of transport SO for granted! And cell phones, and computers, not to mention size of starter houses...anyway, a good thought for a spare five minutes.)

The good news is that it is black, sleek, about the same size as Black Rider, gets good gas mileage, and has a CD player. The bad news is that I had to spend an extra $20 at the tag office to buy a WHOLE NEW TAG, even though I had the old license plate and completely unexpired registration in my hand ready to transfer over, because the car dealer had typed up the title with both our names on it, Michael's coming first, whereas on the old registration, my name had come first, since it was my car first and we added Michael's name to it after we got married. So, in other words, I had to pay for a whole new license plate and registration, instead of a mere title transfer, because of a minor bureaucratic hang-up. Whatever. After I'd fought traffic on my lunch hour and waited over fifteen minutes in line, trying to look as pathetically pregnant as possible in the feeble hope that some good soul would volunteer to give me his place in line ('You look pregnant, Ma'am. Here, take my place and step right up to the counter.' Yeah, right!), and discovered what my options were, I decided to fork over the extra $20 instead of trying to track down the dealer, get him to print out a whole new title, sign all the forms and paperwork all over again, and come back another day. It will only take me another fifteen years or so of picking up pennies in parking lots to make it up.

Anyway the new license plate was your standard-issue plate, because pretty plates and vanity plates cost far more than they do in Virginia, and at first I was mildly puzzled by the unassuming AGC. Suddenly on Saturday it hit me. We were out shopping, and had driven separately to drop off Michael's truck for tire rotation, and as I walked up to my car it dawned on me: Agincourt! This was so marvelous that I just about called Michael on my cell phone to tell him about it, but I decided against it since, after all, it was a proper name. Then Michael himself came up with the brilliant, elegant, devastatingly simple tour de force: Magic. Aha! Of course! How could it have escaped us? What better word can you make with the letters AGC?

It does put us in a bit of a dilemma, though. The obvious conclusion, judging from the colour and all, is Black Magic. I'm not really sure I want to name my car that, though. How else does one propose to top Black Rider, though? I've already decided emphatically against Black Rider II or anything of that sort.

I sit in solemn silence simmering stew on the stove while my husband works late. And it's only Monday already!