Since Zivy is a little eclectic, I suppose she deserves a little explanation. Well, that plus she's a bitchy attention whore. "Drive me! Wash me! Write about me! Get me the number of that cute Eldorado!". Yeah, she's easy too.
The story of Zivanka the Hearse goes way back to age 16, when I was driving around my mom's 1987 Subaru (9 years old at the time) and desperately wanted a unique car. I feel the need to explain here that my only reason for wanting or driving a hearse is purely for its uniqueness. When people question it, the conversation usually goes something like this:
- Why do you drive that?
- Would you?
- No.
- THAT. That is exactly why I drive it.
So I was driving past our local throw-back of a used car dealership (you know the kind, a gravel lot full of weeds and equally ugly cars, a 27-year-old RV trailer office, and spraypainted letters on a sheet of plywood that read "Afordible Used Cars --->") when the clouds parted and the sun shone down on the most gorgous ugly car I've ever seen. I say "gorgeous ugly" because there are just some things that are so hideous, you have to love them for the new level of ugly they've reached.
I still don't know to this day the exact year, but there sat a white, rusted, 1960-something Cadillac hearse. It was long and wide with a raked roof and 4 flat tires. It peered back at me over the top of the dash through a tall, cracked windshield. The rear windows were lined with faded and stained blue curtains. I obsessed over this car for a full 3 weeks, driving past it at least once every other day, and plotting how in the world I'd convince my parents to let me buy it. My father was, and still is to this day, completely against buying used cars, ESPECIALLY really old cars.
Alas, it was finally bought up by someone to use as a cheap Halloween prop, then promptly dumped back at another used car lot on November 1st. It sat there for 2 days before it disappeared from the lot and from my life.
For the next 7 years I told myself, "Someday, someday I'll have a hearse." At one point, over a year into a relationship with a boyfriend, I mentioned my dream to own one. He glared at me with strange disgust and told me, "I would have never starting dating you if I had known that about you." Well, obviously you aren't The One.
One month into my next notably serious relationship, I mentioned the hearse obsession again. I figured I might as well get all my weirdness out on the table, just in case he decides he can't get past it. To my surprise, he was not only okay with it, but insisted we immediately start scouring want ads and websites to buy one. I believe this was the first time I said, "I love you."
After a failed attempt in Pennsylvania (we drove 5 hours for a car that the owner claimed was in "good condition" to find it sitting in a foot of water, covered in the worst bondo job I've ever seen, and with an engine that hadn't run in months), we found the perfect car on e-Bay. We made the 18-hour trip to pick it up in one day, leaving at 4:30 in the morning, and stopping at rest stops on the way home to sleep in the back. Yes, we have slept in the back, but nothing else, so no need to ask.
Seeing as how we were in no way obsessed with death, Halloween, the devil, animal sacrifices, morgues, or the like, we wanted a name that strayed away from the typical ghouls and goblins. And thus was born Zivanka, meaning "Alive".