Spending New Year’s Eve as I usually do, laid out on my mother’s living room floor eating snacks and watching about six hours worth of movies, just enough to carry us through to that final ten minutes of Dick Clark’s show and the ball drop in Times Square (some day I swear that man will age decades before our very eyes), the thought occurs to me: does anyone actually put gloves in a glove compartment any more?
Very useful little space when we were all motoring around in the Model-T, which was mostly open to the elements; not so useful now that you can just heave stuff over your shoulder into the back seat (quick snapshot of what’s in my backseat:
- one mitten (the other is in the trunk…don’t ask),
- cassette tape case (hey, the car’s 13 years old; no in-dash CD player for me),
- an empty Dr. Pepper can,
- and the rock used to break the window the last time someone tried to steal the car (I inherited this from the guy I bought the car from)).
What’s in my glove compartment:
- Small flash light
- tire pressure guage
- registration and insurance papers
- cheap pair of sunglasses
- and a pair of rubber gloves (really don’t ask)
So, if the actual use of something has evolved beyond its name, why does its name persist?
Random thoughts from during my viewing of The Recruit
Happy New Year!