Seattle boring machine Bertha is now ‘Christine’

It’s official.

The Dori Monson Show listeners have spoken. The boring machine called Bertha will now be known as “Christine.”

Monson said it was time for a new name as Bertha was named in honor of former Seattle Mayor Bertha Knight Landes, and the machine so far is not necessarily helping out her legacy.

“Wherever she is looking down on us, she probably doesn’t want to be associated with this gigantic boondoggle under downtown Seattle that is stuck, bloated, and can’t move,” said Monson. “We’ve got to come up with a different name.”

The show took nominations from listeners, and all the names were put to a vote.

Some of the other top contenders were “Lump,” named for the Presidents of the United States song with lyrics that seem very fitting for the drill: “Lump sat alone in a boggy marsh. Totally motionless except for her heart. Mud flowed up into Lump’s pajamas…”

Lump had 29 percent of the vote. Followed by “Plug” which stands for “perpetually lost under ground.”

But 35 percent of the listeners ended up choosing “Christine,” which was the original suggestion from host Dori Monson.

Here he explains his logic for the choice:

I believe the reason they’re doing this whole tunnel project is because the big downtown property owners and developers, they wanted the value of their real estate to explode by taking down the viaduct, so I think there were a lot of backroom deals. I think that there was probably a little bit of graft that accompanied this whole deal. I’m not accusing any particular politician of graft.

So I think “Christine” would be the perfect name for this drill under downtown Seattle. I also found a trailer from a movie in the 1980s that fits my drill name perfectly.

So from this day moving forward on The Dori Monson Show, the drilling machine Bertha will be known as “Christine.”