OMGUSUK

Why do people need personalized license plates? What exactly is the point? I don't understand it, but I'd really like to. Unfortunately, the kind of people that have such plates seem far too ostentatious for my fragile disposition. I get sweaty around such people, I worry they'll start to pinch my cheeks or rib me with their elbows--back me into a corner and explain to me the versatility and universality of tweed. So, forcibly alone on this voyage of discovery, I speculate wildly.

Do they have difficulty meeting people? Do they think their love of Saabs will spark a roadside conversation? A life-long friendship?

"Excuse me, but I couldn't help noticing you think 'SOBSROK'. Do you mean the European car manufacturer or the spasmodic contraction of the throat? I, for one, enjoy both."

Is the drive to let complete strangers in on their inner most desires so strong that they have to coalesce their reason for drawing breath into a 7 digit alpha-numeric code? Were they not held as children?

Is there not one amongst the millions of bumper stickers that adequately demonstrates their status as a "18FCALI"? Or do they simply relish the fact that they are able to waste literally thousands of minutes of people's lives daily as a freeway full of motorists collectively wonder, "what . . . the . . . fuck?"

All of this is bad enough. It seems to me, though, that in addition to wasting my time, most of these plates are outright lies or, in the best case, percolating self-deceptions.

SK8RGRL	Just really likes Volcom and either loves or despises Avril Lavigne
1337HXR	Rewarded himself with that for getting his Mandrake-based Counter Strike server up and running.
PRNSTAR	Isn't, but desperately wants you to think he is.

The impetus for this drivel began on the way to work: I was stuck behind an Audi TT. The shiny black roadster, looking like someone had tugged at a VW Beetle with a taffy-puller, was driven by a beehive of thinning silver hair that may or may not have been mounted to the skull of some osteoporotic septuagenarian. The license plate read MJS4FUN.

Besides driving fast, which these cars do pretty well, the only fun I can imagine gleaning from an Audi TT is laughing as more than one friend tries to pile in the car with you. The fun-factor necessarily diminishes if one of these friends is a dwarf or an amputee. The car was a hardtop because, frankly, it looked as though any whipping wind would cleave with grim finality what remained of her hair from their enfeebled folicles.

So it had to be the rule-bending exhileration of speed. This ball of fluff though, alone in her car, windows fully up, was watching her speed strictly--watching it sit perfectly 10mph below the 25mph limit.

"YOU'RE NOT HAVING FUN!" I screamed, fists shaking. The scream was imagined of course, but imagined with the incredulity of a young Tom Hanks managing a team of unruly housewives ("There's no crying in baseball"). My hands were steadfast at 10 and 2. As sweat formed a puddle betwixt my brows, my left eye began twitching uncontrollably.

I vented this annoyance to a friend (ref: 1, 2), and he notified me that his father, in fact, had a personalized license plate. He then cautioned me to not "paint all users with the same brush", which is good advice. Further, he said that he feels initials (his father's simple, austere choice) leant an elegance to the affair of owning a motor car.

So all of a sudden I look like the crazy one.

Strange how initialling your car is a sign of cultivation, while initialling a carton of milk with a permanent marker conveys anal retentiveness and paranoia.