IH8TEWE

Lately, I've been getting more and more irritated with vanity plates. You know, those stupid, cheesey license plates that people personalize for their cars. I guess I just don't get the point. I remember when I first turned 16 I thought it would be cool to have one, but I don't have a nickname or anything clever that I could have put on mine so I didn't bother. Plus why would I waste the money? Well, I'm glad I didn't get one, because now I make fun of those people.

There are several reason why personalized license plates bother me. One, I don't get the point. If you're going to put your name on it, the only people who know your name probably already know the car you're driving so what's the point in putting your name on your plate? Plus, those of us who don't know you could probably care less what your name or cutesy nickname is. Two, I just don't understand for the life of me why people put inside jokes on their license plate. Occassionally you'll see a license plate with some stupid saying or word on it that clearly nobody would understand unless you knew the person. I don't care about your inside jokes so how about you keep them inside? Third, and probably the most annoying, the word or phrase that people usually want on their plate is more than likely already taken, so they have to settle for some ridiculous version of the original word. You know like "CATLOVER" is already taken so your dream of having that phrase on your license plate now becomes "CTLURVR". Dumb.

The reason they are increasingly bothering me is because I keep seeing more and more stupid ones. When I see the stupid plate it makes me want to look at what kind of person would want their license plate to display this encryped message that is usually never self explanitory. And the best part about it is the person generally looks completely unrelated to the message!?

Yesterday on the way home from work, for example, I was following some stupid red car with personal plates that said "MRS LEVY". Aw, how cute, right? No. The person driving was clearly not Mrs. Levy, but a Mr. Another annoying example is a friend of mine, who is now in his very late 20's, still has his personal plates from high school which proudly displays his last name and high school football number. Come on pal, isn't it time to retire that number?

The best example of all has to be a few weeks ago when I was yet again, following another stupid vanity plate that I could not seem to get away from. The plate was supposed to read "CUTIE PIE" but that was obviously taken, so they had to settle for some weird and ridiculous version of "CUTIE PIE" which looked something like "QUETIEPE". Ugh... what does that jumble of letters even mean? Oh... cutie pie. How precious. What kind of 13 year old Hannah Montana fan wants to put cutie pie on their license plate so badly that they settle for that rendition? I gotta see this. So I pull up next to the "cutie pie" and it's some dude!? What the hell is wrong with you? If I were a guy I would not feel comfortable driving a car with "QUETIEPE" on the license plate. Sigh...

On an unrelated note, I was at the gym last night, doing a little running on the treadmill and watching some tv, when an ice cream commercial came on. It looked delicious. They showed an extreme close-up of someone slowly scooping it out with this spoon that made a sweet little texture in the ice cream and curled it up into a smooth little ball ready to be devoured. I was like, "Man... that looks delicious. Screw the gym, I'm going to the store after this to buy some of that ice cream!" I kept waiting through more close ups and slow camera pans for them to show the logo or at least tell me what kind of ice cream it was. After what seemed like the slowest skim of the top layer of ice cream ever they finally showed the logo.... it was butter.

I'm a fatass.