A few months ago, the license plate reader at the car wash stopped letting me in. I bought an annual pass back in salt, mud, and crow poop season, so technically I have prepaid to wash my car every day for a year. The expense was less than you might think, and the concept is that I can simply drive up, the gate will open, I'll proceed to the washing shed, and then I'll relax as my car is vigorously rinsed, washed, rinsed again, and dried. But waiting for an attendant to punch in my license plate number really spoiled the easy in/easy out vibe.
Then, when I renewed my registration, I noticed a warning that when a plate is unreadable, it must be replaced, otherwise, it is considered a traffic violation. I went out and took a hard look at my plates. They were definitely showing their 14 years; the blue was peeling off most of the letters and numbers. That's why the car wash wouldn't let me in.
Still, I'm a stubborn sort, and I didn't really want new plates; I felt like I had just learned those, and it seemed my only option was a specialty plate with a custom insignia. Even so, I had noticed that on the standard plates, the state, which started with Zs plus four digits at least 20 years ago, was up to Ts (my own plate was an X), and I secretly envied the TWA and TRA plates. I considered my choices on and off for a few months and finally opted for a personalized plate that might not immediately read like one. I chose THX 1998.
All of this is to explain that license plate numbers have been a big topic of conversation around here lately, and so I'm very sensitive to them. That's why today, in the Target parking lot, I laughed out loud when I saw these two next to each other:
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