On an average day, I will walk by someone with an interesting T-shirt. Perhaps it is of the āGraphicā variety, and so it comes adorned with an arresting image, a funny little aphorism. Maybe Iāll drive by a car with an insane decal. Or perhaps a complete stranger with a tattoo somewhere I didnāt expect.
The key is that I donāt talk to any of these people. And so, what ends up happening, is that everything I imagine about this person is filtered through the lens of their insane Joker/Harley Quinn tee or whatever. When I drive behind a man with a Brazzers license plate frame,
the moment I pull up beside him, and get a good look at his face, all I can think is, āWow. A real Brazzers man.ā He could be a beautiful, gentle soulāa patient father of three, maybe on his way to take his kids to Baskin Robbins before the sun sets and the moment is ruinedāor maybe a world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon, speeding through Palo Alto traffic to perform life-saving atrial fibrilation on a visiting world leader. Any of the above things could be true. And in his own life, likely 99% of the time, he is not thinking about his Brazzers license plate frame. Heās just driving, and thereās a guy to his left now, looking directly at him. Why is he staring? Iām just driving. I have so many other things going on in my life that Iām thinking about. What does he want from me?
Itās quite the modern conundrum, donāt you think?
We are not just our dumbest t-shirts. We are more than our hastily applied bumper stickers. The human life is robust and brimming with variety. I know that. But there is something uniquely inescapable about this fact: that when I see you with an insane license plate, and then I catch a glimpse of your profile, you are nothing more than that stupid fucking license plate to me. You cannot escape it; you have been Defined, Codified, Bagged and Tagged. Sorry, brother!
I am a chronic License Plate Noticer. Sorry if that offends. The first thing my brain processes when a car enters my field of vision is its license plate. Novelty license plates are one of modern lifeās most trenchant detailsāevery letter an ocean of possibility, of feeling, of past regrets. I have decided to share with you all some of my favorites that Iāve come across. Keep in mind that people chose to do this. Enjoy.
You can imagine he was going for āCOOKā here. I wouldāve just taken out the āUā in āLUVā to secure the space later on. I could be wrong, though. Dude could just love to cuck.
Gotta hope the guy who owns this is Asian. Kind of a reclaiming thing, hopefully. Otherwiseāwe are deep in the shit, brother.
Gotta hope the guy who owns this is Asian. Otherwiseā¦
The Most Annoying Guy Youāve Ever Met On Hinge, am I right???????????????????????? šš
Actual most annoying guy. Guaranteed Indian.
Iāll give it up to this personāit makes me laugh. Intentional spelling error or not, itās just fucking funny.
This was a particularly special one I came across in Syracuse. The decals on the back windshield obviously fill out the picture. I donāt know how to think of this man. I donāt know if I want to think about him. It does, unfortunately, feel 100% certain that he is white.
Many friends received this picture in a text from me. This is, for my money, the funniest license plate Iāve ever seen. By far. I donāt think a single human in recorded history has crafted a phrase funnier than ā19 COVID.ā And then to make it your license plate?
Van in Mexico.
The ambiguity here is what compels me. Itās so declarative, powerful, unknowable. I want to know so much more. I want to know how the sentence endsāor if, of course, it just ends there.
I canāt remember if I took this or if a friend sent it to me. Either way, itās from 2014, according to my iPhone. Ten years ago, I had both Snapchat and a deep fear of someone not understanding the joke.
GUMPP + QAnon slogan. Interesting.
Big treat for fans of āMy Dad Speaking Malayalamā in there.
The guy depicted above, the titular āADDYGUY,ā lives across the street from me. I donāt want to blow up his spot, but letās just say we both live in a city in Central New York.
I see his car every day. I have no idea what āADDYGUYā means. Itās been 1.5 years. And, of course, I will not talk to him; I will not ask him. I will simply torment myself for years, not knowing what āADDYGUYā is meant to convey. Thatās my cross to bear.
āI love to see UKā, probably