PMS 2728*

Over at the Ragtag Daily Prompt the word of the day is COBALT

I used to drive a 1997 tan, excuse me, I take that back – Sandrift – Chevy Cavalier. It was the first brand new car I bought, and it was a good car and I liked it a lot. Not enough to give it a name like a lot of people do, but enough to keep it clean and in good shape.

In March of 2009 I was parked on a street in downtown Minneapolis and while I was away someone slid on the icy street while making a right turn and drove right into the passenger door of my unnamed Cavalier.

Kaboom.

The someone turned out to be nice because she left a note under my windshield wiper apologizing for hitting my car and she left her name and phone number and insurance company. And then she wrote “I’m so sorry” in big letters at the bottom of the note.

I could still drive the car, but neither of the two passenger side doors worked and there was a gap where the front door no longer fit the frame which let in an awful draft. The insurance company totaled the car so that wasn’t such a bad thing for me.

Since I liked the Cavalier (although I suppose one could argue just how much someone could like a car if someone didn’t even take the time to name their car), and was, at the time, of the belief that change is best avoided whenever possible, I went back to the Chevy dealer to get another Cavalier and guess what? I learned that Chevrolet had discontinued the Cavalier and replaced it with the Cobalt.

Oof..

Cobalt? Immediate thought: it makes me think of James Coburn, star of the Flint movies and The Great Escape. (He can be seen at the beginning of this trailer riding a bicycle as well as later on when the cast is introduced)

“It’s really the same car,” the salesman said.

Then why does it have a different name, I didn’t say.

I bought a tan, excuse me, I take that back – Desert Sand Mica – Toyota Corolla instead. Very similar in color (change avoidance, remember?) to my unnamed Cavalier. My little Corolla is 13 years old now and showing signs of wear and tear. I just had it in for an oil change and I mentioned that to the service advisor who assured me that at 147,000 miles the car was “just a baby”. It was comforting to hear that, but then I figured the dealership makes a lot of money on servicing vehicles, and his job pretty much depends on servicing vehicles, so I decided he says that to all the cars and I went back to feeling sad for my little car that’s getting older.

* PMS 2728 = Pantone Measuring System. PMS is a universal color matching system in printing. So if you have printer ‘A’ print something for you using a specific PMS color and printer ‘B’ print the same thing for you using the same PMS color, they should look exactly the same (paper notwithstanding). The number 2728 is the PMS color for cobalt blue.