Bad Gas Station and Other Renames

 

I'm feeding gas into my car at the bad gas station, although I vow every week never to come here again. My husband and I call it tthat because the pumps don't always work right and you can spend a long time filling up your tank. Then when you stop pumping, you get a message to go into the store because the pump machine ran out of paper. Of course you didn't want to go inside; you want to pay and be on your way outside.

I hate it here.

I come for the carwash (when it's running) because against all odds, it's exactly what you want a carwash to be. It's touchless, so your car mirror doesn't get damaged by the swishy things a lot of other car washes have. It's quick and it dries your car well when you go out the other side. Being in the carwash while it's soaping my car up on a sunny day feels like I've gotten one thing right for the week. But getting gas is never not an ordeal.

I've been at other stations, but this is the closest one to my house and it's likely I'll keep returning to the bad station. Giving it this name makes me think of other place names either I or my friends devise. It seems we all have a need to make up names instead of using the ones presented to us. 

As a writer, I can't help but like this idea. I'm naming characters and places all day long, but never realized until just now how often we all name the stores, parks, houses and everything else we see to suit our versions of them.

My husband's favorite house is on the other side of town and looks like a smaller version of an English Castle. He calls it "Stately Wayne Manor" after the home owned by Bruce Wayne, aka Batman. We named our own house "Barbie and Ken's Dream House" because it was built in 1957 with classic mid-century architecture. 

I used to call my first car "Little Feather" because it blew around the road like one. I hate naming cars but this one was too annoying not to name. And it's not just us who's naming things on our own. All our friends do it, too. One called me "Lark" for years because she thought I was sunny and cheerful, which couldn't have been further from the truth. Somehow or other, I grew to like the name.

Another friend calls a nearby playground the Cow Playground because it looks very rural to her, even though there are no cows anywhere nearby. And a coworker calls her daughter "Boo" or something like that (while I've been guilty of making up all sorts of nicknames for my son and cat).

What will I do if my bad gas station ever gets good again? Good question and I'm glad you asked. While I'm doubtful that station will ever improve, I would probably still call it the ex-bad gas station, because we get so used to our names. That's something I know from making up characters and the places they inhabit. 

I think we change faster than our perceptions, and character turnarounds are more often due to an author's intervention than we like to admit. It takes a lot of discipline to follow a character's trajectory without manipulating the story/journey he or she is moving through.

At the end of the day, as I'm guessing you're guessing, I'd dearly love my bad gas station to get better (carwash or no). Maybe I'll just have to bite the bullet and find a better one. That could be my spring project--except I'd have found another station by now if there was one, don't you think?

Still and all, hope springs eternal. I'm already trying to think up a name.

Gas station photo: Jo Naylor