Lifestyle
My 17-year-old Honda, Broomhilda, met a tragic end. Why do we grieve when our cars die?
Our 17-year-old Honda CR-V (affectionately dubbed “Broomhilda”) met her tragic, premature demise last summer when a deer bolted out of neighboring woods, straight into her hood. My husband, who miraculously emerged unscathed, managed to drive it home and repair the dent. Unfortunately, unknown to us, radiator fluid slowly leaked into her engine until, months later, we pulled into our driveway to find our kids frantic as plumes of smoke rose out of her hood, every single alert on her dash alight like a Christmas tree. She was toast — and she smelled like it. Watching a tow truck pull her out of our driveway one last time, I felt an unexpected residue of sadness that lingered for longer than I expected.
I’m hardly the only person to grieve a little when my car dies. I’m also not the only person who felt compelled to give my car a name. George Slavich, director of UCLA’s Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research, says we sometimes can’t help but attribute personality characteristics to the objects we love. “People tend to anthropomorphize certain objects like cars, even giving them names, because our brains are hard-wired to see personality even when it’s not possible to exist,” he says.
So why do we grieve our cars? If you live in L.A., your car isn’t just a means to get from A to B and back again — it’s a small mobile home. You spend so much time in your car that it becomes a transient residence where significant memories are made and milestones are met and, like our homes, we can get emotionally attached to the places where these things occur. For nearly two decades, Broomhilda was that mobile home for our family. We brought our now-teenage child home from the hospital in her. We used her to drop our oldest kid off at college. She carried us in sickness and health, on countless family road trips and terrifying jaunts to the emergency room. We stuffed her with furniture, balloons, cake, pets and more children than legally allowed to and from birthday parties. Her gray cloth backseat was covered with dog hair and a few remaining telltale stains of the regurgitated chocolate milk of a carsick toddler. As she was towed out of our driveway beyond sight, her scraps destined to resurrect other vehicles, I was confident she was dragged off to her metallic grave with a few errant Airpods, a good amount of loose change, and possibly a few baby teeth still lodged beyond reach in her cushions.
Even with the mounting malfunctions of age, Broomhilda housed myriad mementos and sparked zillions of mundane memories — the kind we make daily but take for granted. “Memories are inextricably linked to the context in which they are made, and for many people growing up in the United States, that context likely involved a memorable car or two,” Slavich explains. Because teenage brains are hot-wired (see what I did there?) to form social memories, important social experiences like a first date, first kiss or first joyride might link back to the car you drove or rode in at that time in your life. “When these types of life events occur, your brain encodes not just the circumstances of the event itself, but also the smells, tastes and contextual features of the environment. So, the cars in which our lives unfold become an inherent part of our personal story and history,” he says.
In a busy commuter city like Los Angeles, your car is one of the few places where you have complete control over your environment. Says Slavich: “Amongst all the hustle and bustle of the city, you can roll up the windows, set the temperature exactly how you like it, and play relaxing meditation music or, if you prefer, put on your favorite Jay-Z or Britney song and sing as loud as you want.” Also, whether you’re cognizant of it or not, your car is a space where you entertain. “Every time my friends came into my car they had an experience, whether it was through music or the adventure,” says Monica O’Neal, a Boston-based clinical psychologist and relationship expert.
Our cars also house various aspects of our interior and exterior lives. For one, they’re symbolic of our sense of self and autonomy. “Your car represents you,” says O’Neal. “In some ways, they hold such a sense of our identity, and some narrative of our life and our struggle.” On a surface level, for better or worse, you might be judged by the kind of car you drive, which is something of an L.A. epidemic. Says O’Neal: “Cars are kind of almost like your clothing. When people see you getting in and out of a car, you’re going to have an immediate sense of their identity.” She also says our cars are one of the few private spaces in our lives. “If you’re commuting, you’re spending a bunch of your life in your car. That might be the place where you have privacy, and time alone with your thoughts.” Losing a car might also mean losing a sacred space you might rely on to process your feelings.
The most important thing to know if you’re grieving for your car is you aren’t missing some random object — your car was a sacred space that served as a vessel for the memories you made in it. Any feelings of grief are perfectly normal, are common and, in due time, will pass. It’s been months since Broomhilda went to the scrap heap and I’m still car shopping. Naturally, I’ve been most attracted to CR-Vs. They won’t be Broomhilda, but I know they’ll fit us perfectly.
On-air challenge
Every year around this time I present a “new names in the news” quiz. I’m going to give you some names that you’d probably never heard before 2025 but that were prominent in the news during the past 12 months. You tell me who or what they are.
1. Zohran Mamdani
2. Karoline Leavitt
3. Mark Carney
4. Robert Francis Prevost (hint: Chicago)
5. Jeffrey Goldberg (hint: The Atlantic)
6. Sanae Takaichi
7. Nameless raccoon, Hanover County, Virginia
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge came from Joseph Young, of St. Cloud, Minn. Think of a two-syllable word in four letters. Add two letters in front and one letter behind to make a one-syllable word in seven letters. What words are these?
Challenge answer
Ague –> Plagued / Plagues / Leagues
Winner
Calvin Siemer of Henderson, Nev.
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge is a numerical one from Ed Pegg Jr., who runs the website mathpuzzle.com. Take the nine digits — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. You can group some of them and add arithmetic operations to get 2011 like this: 1 + 23 ÷ 4 x 5 x 67 – 8 + 9. If you do these operations in order from left to right, you get 2011. Well, 2011 was 15 years ago. Can you group some of the digits and add arithmetic symbols in a different way to make 2026? The digits from 1 to 9 need to stay in that order. I know of two different solutions, but you need to find only one of them.
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, January 8 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
Daniel Tosh
Sells Lake Tahoe Home for Millions
Published
Daniel Tosh has officially sold his sprawling Lake Tahoe compound but the comedian isn’t leaving the area … TMZ has learned.
Real estate sources tell us the 7-bedroom, 7-bath estate officially closed Friday for $10.75 million, and Tosh bought another property across the lake to be closer to friends, which is why he decided to sell.
The gated estate, located on the pristine west shore between Tahoe City and Sunnyside, sprawls across 1.6 acres and features three distinct homes, each with its own character and charm.
The Upper House is the ultimate entertainer’s dream … 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, elevator, game room, industrial ice cream maker, 4-car garage, hot tub, fire pit, bocce and horseshoe pits, and sprawling lawns with breathtaking lake views.
The Middle House keeps classic Tahoe charm alive with knotty pine interiors, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a stone fireplace, skylit kitchen, and steam shower — perfect for unwinding after a day on the lake.
The lakeside cabin is a serene retreat with a studio loft, retro kitchenette, modern bathroom, and French doors opening right onto the lake.
Altogether, the property boasts 93 feet of lake frontage, two buoys, and multiple outdoor spaces for fun and relaxation.
Daniel may be moving, but one thing’s clear … he’s still very much a Lake Tahoe guy, just on the other side of the lake now.
Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield.
Netflix
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Netflix
Yes, there are spoilers ahead for the final episode of Stranger Things.
On New Year’s Eve, the very popular Netflix show Stranger Things came to an end after five seasons and almost 10 years. With actors who started as tweens now in their 20s, it was probably inevitable that the tale of a bunch of kids who fought monsters would wind down. In the two-plus-hour finale, there was a lot of preparation, then there was a final battle, and then there was a roughly 40-minute epilogue catching up with our heroes 18 months later. And how well did it all work? Let’s talk about it.
Worked: The final battle
The strongest part of the finale was the battle itself, set in the Abyss, in which the crew battled Vecna, who was inside the Mind Flayer, which is, roughly speaking, a giant spider. This meant that inside, Eleven could go one-on-one with Vecna (also known as Henry, or One, or Mr. Whatsit) while outside, her friends used their flamethrowers and guns and flares and slingshots and whatnot to take down the Mind Flayer. (You could tell that Nancy was going to be the badass of the fight as soon as you saw not only her big gun, but also her hair, which strongly evoked Ripley in the Alien movies.) And of course, Joyce took off Vecna’s head with an axe while everybody remembered all the people Vecna has killed who they cared about. Pretty good fight!
Did not work: Too much talking before the fight
As the group prepared to fight Vecna, we watched one scene where the music swelled as Hopper poured out his feelings to Eleven about how she deserved to live and shouldn’t sacrifice herself. Roughly 15 minutes later, the music swelled for a very similarly blocked and shot scene in which Eleven poured out her feelings to Hopper about why she wanted to sacrifice herself. Generally, two monologues are less interesting than a conversation would be. Elsewhere, Jonathan and Steve had a talk that didn’t add much, and Will and Mike had a talk that didn’t add much (after Will’s coming-out scene in the previous episode), both while preparing to fight a giant monster. It’s not that there’s a right or wrong length for a finale like this, but telling us things we already know tends to slow down the action for no reason. Not every dynamic needed a button on it.
Worked: Dungeons & Dragons bringing the group together
It was perhaps inevitable that we would end with a game of D&D, just as we began. But now, these kids are feeling the distance between who they are now and who they were when they used to play together. The fact that they still enjoy each other’s company so much, even when there are no world-shattering stakes, is what makes them seem the most at peace, more than a celebratory graduation. And passing the game off to Holly and her friends, including the now-included Derek, was a very nice touch.
Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley, and Joe Keery as Steve Harrington.
Netflix
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Netflix
Did not work: Dr. Kay, played by Linda Hamilton
It seemed very exciting that Stranger Things was going to have Linda Hamilton, actual ’80s action icon, on hand this season playing Dr. Kay, the evil military scientist who wanted to capture and kill Eleven at any cost. But she got very little to do, and the resolution to her story was baffling. After the final battle, after the Upside Down is destroyed, she believes Eleven to be dead. But … then what happened? She let them all call taxis home, including Hopper, who killed a whole bunch of soldiers? Including all the kids who now know all about her and everything she did? All the kids who ventured into the Abyss are going to be left alone? Perfect logic is certainly not anybody’s expectation, but when you end a sequence with your entire group of heroes at the mercy of a band of violent goons, it would be nice to say something about how they ended up not at the mercy of said goons.
Worked: Needle drops
Listen, it’s not easy to get one Prince song for your show, let alone two: “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry.” When the Duffer Brothers say they needed something epic, and these songs feel epic, they are not wrong. There continues to be a heft to the Purple Rain album that helps to lend some heft to a story like this, particularly given the period setting. “Landslide” was a little cheesy as the lead-in to the epilogue, but … the epilogue was honestly pretty cheesy, so perhaps that’s appropriate.
Did not work: The non-ending
As to whether Eleven really died or is really just backpacking in a foreign country where no one can find her, the Duffer Brothers, who created the show, have been very clear that the ending is left up to you. You can think she’s dead, or you can think she’s alive; they have intentionally not given the answer. It’s possible to write ambiguous endings that work really well, but this one felt like a cop-out, an attempt to have it both ways. There’s also a real danger in expanding characters’ supernatural powers to the point where they can make anything seem like anything, so maybe much of what you saw never happened. After all, if you don’t know that did happen, how much else might not have happened?
This piece also appears in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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