October 6, 2008
Canadians who were children or unemployed adults during the 1980s might remember the game-show Bumper Stumpers on which contestants had to decipher various vanity license plates. Like all Canadian game-shows, it was the kind of program where contestants would have to defend their titles in a reign that would rival Rocky Marciano’s in order to get their hands on a prize that would normally be found under every audience member’s seat on Deal or No Deal.
Among the puzzles never solved on this show was why anyone but the most vulgar human beings tearing up the asphalt on god’s formerly green earth would bother forking over good money to get a personalized plate.
Vanity plates, while a ray of sunshine on a state prison work detail, do not brighten the day of anyone else maintaining a three-Chevron distance between themselves and your tailgate, who are either mocking you or secretly wishing they could scoop you into the nearest ditch with a giant cow catcher.
Like the Metallica plate above (if Metallica ever got wind of that, they’d set their lawyers on the poor owner with Napster-like ferocity), most vanity plates are devotional, mocking of the poor (KYLIESBMW) or convey some cutesy sentiment about a physician’s particular area of expertise involving odor emitting body parts. They also show someone’s affinity with outlaw biker culture, an ‘ezy rydr’, in a sensible Japanese import with decent mileage.
A man in Christchurch New Zealand recently received his just desserts for putting a vanity license plate on his newly purchased Subaru. “”A while back me and a group of friends were sitting around thinking up great names for personalised plates,” the man said, adding that the brain trust eventually selected “STOWLN” from among the “great names” being bandied about.
According to the country’s insurance reports, Subarus are New Zealand’s second-most stolen vehicles, so going the extra mile to tempt thieves into jacking your particular vehicle might be unwise. The car with the “STOWLN” license plate was stowln, err stolen, that is.
The man, whose sense of humor needs some emergency work done under the hood immediately, said: “When I got my car, I thought it would be hilarious to get the licence plate, so I bought it and put it on my car. It was so funny but I’m certainly not laughing now.” (We’d like to point out that laughter was more appropriate after the theft than before). “My friends have all been giving my sh..t about it as well, I don’t think I will ever live it down.” Certainly not if we have anything to do about it.
