Of Cabbages and Kings.
For about five years now I've had these vanity plates on my car that were a gift from an asshole and I've just never gotten around to changing them. Truth be told I'm lazy when it comes to logistics, I don't like forms or fees of any sort, and I have no problem avoiding a situation entirely if it means I'd have to stand in a line. So it took me five years to get up the gumption to just get rid of the things already and stop being one of Those People with the vanity plates on their off-white 4 door sedan with side fucking curtain airbags.
After browsing the AAA website for a brief eternity of HTML hell, I finally figured out that yes, you can get replacement license plates at your local AAA office. I also found out that my current AAA membership expires in two days, so I obviously had to get in my car at noon on the day after a national holiday and drive to the AAA office all the way on the other side of the freeway. I did this because I figured hey, it's AAA! They give you coupons and maps for free! I'm sure there are no lines there.
And truthfully, there weren't "lineS" plural, there was LINE SINGULAR, snaking itself out the door and into the pool of melted asphalt once marked as a parking lot. I stood in line dutifully, remembering how it was Memorial Day and all the people who died so I could have the internet and watch Gilmore Girls reruns everyday, and who am I to complain just because I want new license plates!?
When I make it to being the third-next person in line, I notice a sign in front of me, handwritten in magic marker that reads,
PLEASE HAVE READY BEFORE YOU REACH THE COUNTER:
- VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER
- CURRENT PROOF OF INSURANCE
- CASH OR CHECK, NO DEBIT
All I could think at that point is, I'm glad I'm not the idiot who hasn't memorized their vehicle identification number! I'm glad I got that thing down by heart the minute I bought it! And then I remembered I had neither my proof of insurance nor any cash whatsoever. I also didn't have my license plates, which was the whole point of me being there. I didn't even think to take my license plates off my car, I just got in the fucking line and stood there for a half an hour. But since I'd stood there all that time, I couldn't fathom getting out of line, so I waited until it was my turn then I promptly told the cashier, "I'm here to get new license plates but I left the old ones...on my car."
She gave me a look of deserved irritance that told me I just wasted 14 seconds of her life, and all I could think to say to mend the situation was, "But I can pay my registration or something too while I'm here since I waited. I know my VIN."
And then of course I realize I don't have any cash, and my registration is a few hundred dollars because I drive a ridiculous off-white 4 door sedan with side fucking curtain air bags and vanity plates I CAN'T GET RID OF, and I'm just standing there holding up the line at AAA with my stupidity. "I'll come back," I say as I just walk away like an idiot.
I leave the AAA office and drive to the nearest shopping center to find an ATM, and I quickly realize that I'm not in a good part of town. I'm not in a decent or average part of town either, I'm in the part of town where people are just casually fishing through the garbage at the nearest Arby's for lunch. It's just the place where I want to be driving around my off-white 4 door sedan with side fucking curtain airbags while withdrawing $240 cash all by myself. Everyone says you're supposed to act natural in these types of situations, much like how you're not supposed to bark at a large, unleashed dog. I'm sure you're not supposed to start writing out your last will and testament in eye liner on your car window while taking cameraphone pictures of your last known whereabouts, and yet this is practically what I do while I'm punching my PIN furiously and spinning my head every second to make sure no one is around me.
I grab a wad of cash that would easily get me high on crystal meth for nine and a half months, I count it RIGHT THERE AT THE ATM, and I shove it down into my purse. Then I remember, SHIT, the fucking PLATES ARE STILL ON MY CAR! Things have begun to go terribly and I'm hot and annoyed and I spy a $.99 Store and think, GOOD IDEA SARAH, I'm sure they'll have a screwdriver! So I run across the parking lot, with my cash and my lack of scruples, past people fishing through the trash at Arby's for some leftover horsey sauce.
Clearly you people see why I am not married. Had I been married at this point, my husband would have beat me senseless with his own shoe for being so incredibly stupid with his hard earned money. But this is also where I prove my would-be husband wrong, because I had a plan! I run into the $.99 Store and buy a $.99 screwdriver and I unpack the thing before I even pay for it, and I hold it out in front of me as a way of telling anyone around me, I AM JUST AS CRAZY AS YOU AND I WILL SHOVE THIS IN YOUR NECK PEOPLE.
Then I pull out my down payment for all that crystal meth and I buy this new weapon of mine, getting back a crisp $19.01.
I run back to my car wielding a $.99 screwdriver in one hand and clutching my crystal meth in the other, and I crouch down and start unscrewing my license plates. And then this man, this older, cracked out man in a Button Your Fly t shirt crouches down next to me, presumably to watch me unscrew my license plates. "What's that say?" he asks, beginning to sound out the sequence of letters that make out my plate.
"It says, T-R-T-R-T...uh what's that say?"
I whip myself around with my screwdriver in my hand and I say, "IT SAYS LEAVE ME ALONE, MISTER, I HAVE THIS SCREWDRIVER!" And this guy all stunned with his horsey sauce all over his face just begins to back the fuck away from me as I tear off both license plates and drive away back to AAA. As I pull out of the parking lot this old guy throws his cup of orange soda all over the back window of my car and I brace myself like it's a bullet going through my windshield.
So there I am back in line at AAA, shaking with all this adrenaline in me from the people eating trash for lunch and the $.99 Store, and I've got this screwdriver in my hand still and my license plates under my arm, and I have to fill out all these fucking FORMS, which was the whole reason I kept those stupid vanity plates in the first place. Then the guy in front of me, decked out in his best flannel and cut-off white denim shorts, turns to me OF ALL PEOPLE and drunkenly sighs, "Hey...hey you got a pen I can borrow?"
I'm so annoyed at this point I say, "No! I am using it, I have all these forms!"
"Well could I use it just for a second?" he asks, unfazed by my fucking screwdriver and the sweat pouring off my forehead because of all the cash I've got on me and the vanity plates under my arm.
"NO! I'M USING MY PEN!" I say firmly while gripping my screwdriver in the most obvious fashion.
"Well..." this guy never stops, "Can you just write on this part right here, just write down '$200' for me?"
And it was like everyone around me just knew it was coming because they all just turn away as I look this guy square in the eye with my screwdriver pointed toward him and everything becomes a scene from Big Business while I yell, "BACK OFF WITH THE PEN, BUDDY."
I don't know if it was the heat or the asphalt, or the line or the fees and forms, or if it was the burden us sedan driving yuppie people endure while trekking our side curtain airbags to the depths of society to register our vanity plates, but suddenly everyone just gave me a round of applause.
