Upon crossing the Pittman line, “missy” makes two promises to herself - one to change her name to the name of the first place she ran out of gas, the other, to settle down wherever her windowless, push start Volkswagen stopped running. Her name change, a symbol of her break with her past, was destiny, facilitated by a conscious decision to continue driving so as not to end up being named Homer, Cerro Gordo, Decatur, or some other cognomen distasteful to “Missy”.
