This is something her father would do

I guess Kara associates the cooler (a.k.a. the esky) with good times, typically filled with food and drink and driving to somewhere fun.

Lance was preparing to go riding yesterday and he propped his bike up against the cooler to open the front door. The bike fell on the cooler with a load clunk. Kara immediately exclaimed "No!! The cooler is hurt. The bike hurt the cooler". She then rushed to the cooler and threw her arms around it, hugging it for several minutes while saying "it's OK cooler, it's alright".