I bought an old Honda Accord so the kids could have a vehicle to drive.  It would primarily be for Sarah who was attending high school at the time.  When Sarah saw the peeling bluish-green paint, she was not particularly impressed.  “Can I paint it?” she asked. 

“Of course.”

So Sarah set to work under Lewis’ direction sanding and painting the car.  She painted it white and then used gray paint to create a stylized whale tail on the sides of the car near the back tire and named her car “Moby” as in “Moby Dick” for the white whale and also because is was her means of being mobile.  Moby served her well transporting her back and forth from high school for two years and then she left to serve an LDS mission in Riverside California.  

Sam, who is by now in high school, was delighted that Moby was now his car.  He promptly wrecked it by getting into an accident on the way to school.  He hit a handicap bus.  No lie.  No one was hurt and the bus wasn’t damaged, but it didn’t do good things to poor Moby.  The car was still functional, but had a dented hood and front side panel.  We bought replacement parts and Sam repaired the vehicle under Lewis’ direction.  The new parts were a flat black color.  The car is now part white and part black, so Sam renamed the car Poby since it reminded him of Po from the movie Kung Fu Panda.  

Then Sarah returned home from her mission to see what was left of what was once her car.  Sigh.  “Can I paint it?” she asked. 

“Of course.”

Since by this point, she figured there was no point in trying to make it look nice, she went for creativity.  She painted the black replacement parts white and then painted big black cow spots all over it.  She renamed the car “Mooby” since it is now obviously a cow.

“Oh my,” I thought, “is she really going to drive it that way, or is it a joke and she’ll fix it later?”  She left it that way. 

She took the car when she went away to college and had many stories to tell.  Some people would pull along side of her, roll down their window and moo.  Some called out, “Got milk?” and others just laughed.  One day one of her roommates said, “You guys gotta see this. There is the coolest car in the parking lot.  I want it so bad,” she pulled out her phone to show her roommates a picture she had taken of this “cool” car. 

“Yeah, that’s mine,” Sarah admitted.  

We finally had to lay Mooby to rest when she stopped being reliable.  This picture was taken the day the tow truck hauled her away.  I thought I’d like a picture to remember the adventures of Moby-Poby-Mooby.