VANITY PLATES 4U

Well, today’s commuting obstacle was fog. Wicked dense fog. So much fog that I felt like we were in a Whitesnake video – except we were driving instead of standing around in the fog playing guitars. And nobody has all that big permed 80s hair anymore.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t much like a Whitesnake video after all.

But thanks to the fog, visibility was reduced to basically the car in front of me and the commute was more “stop” than “go.” Thus, my mind had plenty of time to wander. Sure, I probably should have been holding the steering wheel in a death grip in the 10-and-2 positions and I should have been thinking about nothing other than getting to work safely. But…c’mon. I’m a safe driver. I mean, I wasn’t applying mascara or filing my nails or fiddling with my phone even though we didn’t move long enough that I could’ve downloaded the entire Whitesnake’s greatest hits album, had I so desired.

Instead, I spent the downtime looking at license plates – particularly vanity plates. Some people are so creative and others…well…not so much. As a matter of fact, I saw CRE8TIV, which I liked a lot. And then there are those vanity plates that are probably inside jokes because they’re impossible to figure out.

I happened to be driving directly behind 28TEETH this morning. The obvious conclusion is that the owner is a dentist, but it also could’ve meant that he’s proud that he has a full set in his mouth. Interestingly, I was following 28TEETH home a couple weeks ago so we must be on the same schedule and may even be neighbors. Sadly, I couldn’t tell you the make, model or color of his car – I just know him by his license plate.

But since I had a little spare time on my hands, I started counting the number of teeth in my own mouth, which is silly because I know I’m four short. (I had them yanked the summer I got braces when I was 18. It’s a rather traumatic memory – but that’s a story for another day.)

People who have unfortunate monograms should probably stick to generic license plates. For instance, this morning I saw YAK. So is the owner’s name something like Yolanda Alice King, for example – or is she publicizing the fact that she has a large domesticated wild ox at home? It also made me think of a euphemism for vomiting. Yuck. No pleasant images come to mind with a license plate like that.

I’d rather see clever or interesting vanity plates. Or plates with a positive message. Like, for instance, one of my friends has a great personalized plate: NRGVUP. I love that.

I have an attorney friend who used to have the license plate ISUE4U, which was very clever – but he eventually got rid of it because people kept keying his paint job. Maybe the opponents he beat in court were a little disgruntled?

Vanity plates that make me laugh are always good. My funny bone wasn’t tickled by any on the road this morning, but when I Googled photos of vanity plates, I saw a few good ones. Like a plate in Maine that reads: PLNAHEA. Ha ha. And the plate on a Hummer that reads 1 MPG. And the BLOND or BLONDE plates from various states where the plate is affixed to the car upside down.

Some personalized plates just seem to invite trouble. For example, there was a car parked off the side of the freeway this morning that looked like it had been there all night. The license plate was SCOCH. I wondered if the driver had had a little too much of it last night and was pulled over for drinking and driving? Tsk tsk.

But even if the reason the car was sitting there all night was because the driver ran out of gas or something more innocent than driving under the influence, it sends a negative message. A license plate like that is kind of like daring law enforcement to pull you over to give you a Breathalyzer test.

The most foolish plates are on those expensive sports cars with license plates that read something like 2FAST4U. Whenever I see those cars whizzing by on the freeway I always think they should probably keep their license and registration handy.

When I was younger and had a little red sports car of my own, I wanted to get a vanity plate – but all the ones I wanted were taken. My first choice was MEJANE. Eventually I gave up searching for something personalized, which is probably a good thing because I got pulled over twice in that car with my plain old generic plates.

I still have plain old generic plates, but if I did get a personalized one today, it’d probably have to read something like IMLOST or WHEREMI. Truth in advertising, right?

Oh well. At least my commute this morning wasn’t completely boring. And I’m outta here. If you see me FLYNBYA, it won’t be advertised on my license plate. I prefer to, uh, keep under the radar. If you will.

Oh, never mind. I’ll CUL8R!

Musings on the Road of Life (or at least on I-71N!)

I was driving home from the gym last night after a sweaty workout and was paying more attention to the aches and pains of various body parts than to my fellow drivers. Don’t get me wrong, I had my eyes firmly focused on the road ahead of me, but I wasn’t noticing each and every vehicle sharing the highway with me.

This is unlike my usual behavior where I often check out the vanity license plates and make up stories about the person. Some plates are so clever that I don’t make up stories about the person – I just admire their creativity. But others? Not so much.

Hey, I figure anyone who is vain enough to pay for and affix to their vehicle a license plate that reads “2HOT4U” deserves whatever fictional stories I can envision.

Like I picture the tan, blonde little chickie-doo with this particular vanity license plate a few decades down the road with skin all wrinkly so that the “cool” tattoos she had drilled into her skin at 20 have become unrecognizable. And I imagine that gravity has finally gotten the best of things and the fourteen holes she had pierced into her ears are causing her lobes to droop to her shoulders so that she vaguely resembles a beagle.

Is this mean of me? Eh. Maybe. Hey, I think it’s great when young people celebrate their youth. They should – because it doesn’t last as long as anyone thinks it will. I also say “to each his own” and if someone wants to cover themselves in tattoos and piercings, that’s their decision. But I also totally get that young folk do not think they will succumb to old age – ever. None of us do. But even when I was young, I was never vain enough to think I was “2HOT4U” even during the years I might have been somewhat lukewarm.

But, as I said, I wasn’t paying attention to vanity license plates. I was thinking, Oww…my knees are shot. I shouldn’t have set the speed on the treadmill at 1.2 MPH…that was wayyy too fast! And I was also thinking, I wonder how long it will take me to get buff arms using .5 lb weights?

I joke. Actually, the treadmill was set at a level that, while not fast enough to win me any speed records, was faster than, well, "not moving." And I’m not a total slouch with the weight machines either. Nevertheless, on the drive home I WAS thinkin’ about the stitch in my side and the ache in my shoulder.

Anyway, I was suddenly distracted from my thoughts when I noticed a motorcycle in the lane next to me. The rider had on a helmet, riding gloves and sturdy shoes. Not much of a distraction, right? But then I noticed the brown stretch pants. From there my eyes were drawn to the white lace blouse fluttering in the wind.

Huh?

Most of the time when I see women on motorcycles, they are hanging on behind a male rider. So forgive my antiquated notions that only men drive the things. But the stretch pants sort of had me befuddled. I couldn’t come close to telling her true age as her black and red motorcycle helmet hid her face from view. But – and please forgive me – the arms holding onto to the handles were not young arms. They were sort of…um…flapping in the wind.

Not that I have room to talk. But my arms rarely see the light of day. And they are never attached to the handlebars of a motorcycle!

Sadly, my decided lack of knowledge of all things “motorcycle” prevent me from reporting on what sort of bike it was. Nor would I assume that she’s a member of Hell’s Angels or some other badass cycle group. She could be, I suppose, but I doubt even granny riders wear brown stretch pants and white lace blouses when they’re out on their “choppers.” (Do they even call motorcycles “choppers”? See? This is unknown territory for me!)

Nevertheless, I did sort of think it was cool that this (apparently) older woman was tooling down the freeway on her bike. To each his own – right? And, okay, so I did sort of wonder if she had any tattoos. And then I tried to imagine how many holes she had in her ears. And my final thought before I returned to my own little world of aches and pains was: Can you get vanity license plates for motorcycles? If so, hers might read: “HOTFLSHN”!