I dub thee...

Our family has the odd habit of naming things. I'm not quite sure where it started, but by the time I was old enough to remember anything, our Kenmore fan was just called "Kenmore." We don't make a habit of naming everything (for instance, no room in our house has a name, like The Rose Room or anything like that), but there are a few things that deserve titles.

Such as vehicles. Our van, big, slow and green, is called the Turtle. (I'll never forget the day I told the guy at Goodyear Tire that, and afterward he began to refer to the van as The Turtle. They messed up our brakes, though, so he didn't endear himself to me, even though he was on board with the whole Turtle thing.) Our Camry, with the first three letters of the license plate reading "Elf" was dubbed The Elf. Tacky, we know, but it came with a name, and we don't believe in being contrary to pre-named items. Our Taurus is called Avon. I'll take full credit for that one, because I was the one who first fell in love with a clever little book called The End of the Beginning, wherein an ant and a snail (Avon and Edward) journey forth on all sorts of adventures. Having a vehicle named Avon seemed like the least we could do to pay homage to the brilliance that is that book.

Other things in our house weren't really my doing. Our refrigerators, for instance. We have two refrigerators, both whiteish, both side-by-side, and it was frightfully difficult to tell them apart. My mom kept on reminding us that we should pick names for them (other than "the milk fridge" and "the leftover fridge"), and after several suggestions like Stan (because the one was more tan-coloured than the other), and other less-sensible names, we stumbled upon brilliance. Mahli and Mushi.

My mom claims that she always sort of wanted twins named Mahil and Mushi, after the legendary Bible brothers, but just never had the chance. So, that was that. Mushi became the name of our fridge that always dies (and leaves us with mushy food) and Mahli became... the other one. Everyone thinks we're saying Molly and Mushy, and can't imagine why we chose such odd names, but we silently thank that clever Merari fellow for having such funnily-named children.