Since She Came Out of Her Mother

I've been thinking a lot recently about the day Snookums was born, and it made me remember a funny story that happened to me a few years ago. 

I was waiting on the subway platform on my way home late one Saturday night and got into a conversation with the guy sitting next to me, a kid who was probably about 19 or 20. He started telling me all about his car. And what a car it was. 

For starters, the only person allowed to drive it besides himself was his mother, who had taken it to Atlantic City for the weekend. He told me how much it had cost to have it custom painted, what his monthly car payments were, how he always parked it in shade to protect the finish. 

He also told me how he'd adorned it to celebrate the many aspects of himself. The driver's seat had a customized Italian-flag design to celebrate his Italian heritage, the passenger's seat had an Irish-flag design to celebrate his Irish heritage, he'd had a rainbow painted along the bottom of the car to celebrate his bisexuality and placed a giant decal with his boyfriend's name on the passenger side. 

(Oh, and did I mention he was from New Jersey? Perhaps you've guessed that by now.) 

After listening to this for a few minutes, I realized this was the kind of person who definitely had a name for his car. (I am not such a person, by the way. I loathe driving.)  "What's your car's name?" I asked. 

"Madonna!" he blurted out, almost before I'd finished the sentence.

"Wow, that's cool," I said, mostly just trying to make polite conversation. "You know, I have tickets to her concert this summer at Madison Square Garden." 

"Getouttaheah!" the kid exclaimed. "I been lovin' huh since I came outta my mother practically." 

And that's how I feel about Snookums: I've been loving her since she came out of her mother.