SRY IM L8

I just spent a good part of the past four days inside of a car on an interstate in one of three states in the southeast. Geography quiz: one of them was South Carolina and one of them was Florida, can you guess the other?

Now, this drive is boring. I suppose any 8 hour drive would be boring. There are only two places where I actually enjoyed the driving part: through Tennessee and to Key West. The scenery adds to the merriment in those two places. I was reminded while I was behind the wheel of my Ram how much I don't understand vanity plates. People actually go out of their way to pay their respective state governments extra money to put a little message on the backs of their cars. It's puzzling. The biggest drawback, I think, is that you can't rob a bank. I don't think I'll ever actually do that, but I'd like to have the option. But if the back of my car said ENGRSTD, then it'd be pretty easy to catch me. So I'm going to go with the quickpick whenever I buy a new car.

In order to pass the time on the 500 mile drive, I started to take note of the plates that I saw, and I'm going to comment on the best ones now. I hope I'm not breaking the law by publishing them.

I saw the first two right near each other, and they were the ones that really got me started on this project: I4PEACE and IM LATE. What in the world would possess someone to announce to the driving public IM LATE? I4PEACE I guess I understand a little better, but really, who's for war? Nobody is for war; even the people who are in favor of the war don't want war.

I saw a couple that I didn't know what they meant, like KREON and YARDNU. The only Kreon I know is from Oedipus, but that was spelled Creon, and I'm pretty sure that if he was real he's dead by now. And besides, Creon was killed by his son, who then went on to marry Jocasta, Creon's wife and Oedipus's mom, so that's not really the sort of thing that people would brag about, unlike TEAM DOC or FLYBOI. I saw TEAM DOC in the parking lot of the O'Connell Center at UF, so I suspect it was a trainer for the current National Champs or just a liar. I suspect Flyboi is a pilot, and used the less frequently seen spelling of boy, but I really wish he was a skater. I saw DUXNBUX up here, and I didn't get what that meant until my Wisconsonite roommate explained that it has something to do with hunting. Although it was a while ago, so I can't be positive that it wasn't BUXNDUX, but really, who cares.

The last two, though, are way better than any of these earlier ones. IM NONNI was on the back of some station wagon in Georgia, I think, that was driven by someone I can only imagine was Nonni. 4ALPACAS is a bit of a mystery, since 4 can be a stand-in for a variety of homophones. We can't be sure if this man owns four alpacas, is an advocate for alpacas of any number, or he frequently plays golf with the South American llama like creatures. Honestly, I'm in the golf camp because I think it's a little unrealistic that the guy would be advocate for alpacas.

I saw a few others, but they were even dumber than these. One girl in high school had MS GIRL except instead of girl, it was her actual name. I'm a little conflicted as to whether or not I should put her actual name on there. But if any of my readers out there have a vanity plate, please understand that this is all in jest when I say: I think you spent your money on an identifying mark that makes you look a little bit retarded.