Hate My Vanity Plate
September 2, 2021 – Dover, Delaware, USA
When Travis Vance transferred from his hometown in west Texas to Delaware, he had to make some adjustments. He missed the wide-open spaces. In Delaware, he was constantly surrounded by people. They were people who did not seem to properly appreciate his dog, his truck, or football.
The Delaware move was not Travis’s choice. The managers at his company had decided that Travis needed to gain some experience in their Delaware office if he wanted to move up the corporate ladder. Since Travis liked almost everything about the company and dreamed of someday flying around in the corporate jet, he agreed to the temporary relocation.
To make Delaware living more tolerable, Travis found little ways to remember his Texas roots. He put up a Texas state flag in his apartment window. Then he put up a team flag for the Dallas Cowboys. He attached stickers to his water bottles and laptop which were outlined in the shape of the state of Texas. While wearing boots was not something Travis had done back home, he ordered a pair so he could have them for special occasions in Delaware.
As a semi-permanent Delaware resident, Travis knew he needed to register his truck in the state and get new license plates. He hung on to his Texas plates until they were about to expire and then grudgingly visited the Delaware DMV’s website. He found a form for registering a vehicle along with a notice that the DMV was transitioning some of their computer systems. Temporarily, all transactions had to be done in person at one of their offices.
“I’ve got to go down there and wait in line?” Travis said to himself. “This would never happen in Texas.”
When Travis took the afternoon off to visit the DMV, the office was just about what he expected. A line of people snaked back and forth between rope barriers. Employees sat behind plexiglass windows, motioning at people in the line. The room smelled damp and some of the overhead fluorescent bulbs flickered like they were about to die.
Travis looked at the line and contemplated returning early some morning so he would not have to wait. Since he had already made the trip, he decided would simply suffer through it. He took his place at the back and inspected the people in front of him. Everyone kept their heads down, mostly staring at phones and avoiding eye contact. Everyone, that is, except for the man standing directly in front of Travis. He wore crisply ironed tan slacks and a sports jacket. His gray hair was nicely trimmed. He smiled at Travis like they were related and just happened to bump into each other.
“You here for a driver’s license?” the man asked Travis.
“I probably should be. I thought I’d start with new license plates,” replied Travis.
“Me too.”
“Wish we could do this online instead of coming in here.”
“I don’t mind. I’m retired and it gives me something to do,” the gray-haired man said with a laugh. “I’m here for my motorcycle. How about you?”
“My truck.”
“Never had a truck. Maybe I should try one. My wife would probably hate it as much as my motorcycle.”
“You don’t look like most motorcycle riders I know,” said Travis.
“Oh, you think I should have more tattoos?” the man replied with another laugh.
Travis laughed, too, and said, “Yeah, maybe that’s it.”
“I was a church minister when I was working. A lot of folks in my congregation were surprised by the motorcycle too. I’m here getting a vanity plate for my bike. I want it to show a little of my personality.”
“What are you going to get?”
“Something with a little religious feel. Maybe it’ll say, ‘To Church’. Like that’s where I’m headed on my bike. I might have to abbreviate or use a number to make it fit.”
“That sounds cool,” said Travis with a grin.
He and the motorcycle man continued to talk as they moved up in the line. By the time Travis reached the front, he was convinced he wanted a vanity license plate of his own.
“Next!” called the DMV woman behind the plexiglass barrier.
Travis strolled up to her and added some Texas twang when he said, “Howdy ma’am. I’ve got a form for gettin’ a regular license plate, but now I’m wonderin’ if I can get a vanity plate instead.”
The DMV woman looked over her bifocals, which were attached to a chain around her neck. “It’ll cost you extra.”
“That’s just fine,” said Travis. “It’ll be worth it.”
“You can pick up to seven letters or numbers for a passenger car. What did you have in mind?”
“It’s for a truck, not a car. But the same rules probably apply. And I’m from Texas, so I’d love for my plate to simply say TEXAS.”
The DMV woman’s eyes rolled slowly toward the computer screen in front of her. She tapped at her keyboard before replying, “TEXAS is already taken. You could take TEXAS plus a number. How about TEXAS9?”
Travis frowned. He did not want Texas and a number. He was not partial to any number in particular. All he wanted was for people to know he loved Texas.
“How about ‘I love Texas’?” Travis asked the woman.
“Too many letters.”
“On second thought, loving Texas in not quite the message I’m going for. Anyone can love Texas. I want people to know I was born and raised in Texas. How about ‘Raised in Texas’?”
“That’s even more letters. You’d need to abbreviate.”
Travis turned over his license plate request form and grabbed the pen on the counter in front of him. “I could take out the vowels in Texas and people would still know what I mean,” Travis mumbled. He wrote TXS on the piece of paper.
The DMV woman looked past Travis to the people still waiting in line. “You need to hurry.”
“So maybe I abbreviate ‘raised’ as RAZD and put an N in between. That’s RAZDNTXS.”
“That’s eight letters instead of seven.”
“Okay, drop the D. RAZNTXS. Everybody will know that means ‘Raised in Texas’.”
The DMV woman tapped at her computer again. “It’s available if you want it.”
“Oh yeah, I want it. Don’t you think it’ll be cool?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the DMV woman replied flatly. “The plates should arrive by mail in three to six weeks.”
“Will it be closer to three or six? I can’t wait to get these on my truck.”
“I can’t say. I don’t make the plates.”
Travis paid his fees and finished up at the help window. As he left the office, he was glad he had come down in person and met the motorcycle riding minister.
Travis usually checked his mailbox only once a week to throw away the advertisements and catalogs that arrived. Now that he was expecting his new plates, he made a stop at his apartment’s mailbox cluster every day. They arrived on a Saturday, after only a two and a half week wait. Travis pulled them out of the protective cardboard envelope and admired the letters. RAZNTXS. Exactly as he requested.
Before attaching the new plates to his truck, Travis wanted to make sure it looked its best. He drove to a drive-thru carwash and paid for a deluxe clean and wax. Then he returned home and reverently removed his old Texas plates and put on the new Delaware ones.
“Time to show them off,” Travis said to himself. He put on his boots before getting in his truck for a little drive.
Travis headed for a well-trafficked street not far from his apartment. The street was surrounded by shops and office buildings and had two lanes in both directions. There were traffic lights after every block, which Travis usually hated because they slowed progress. But on that day, he did not mind the lights so much because they gave people more time to admire his plates.
As Travis eased onto the street, he stayed in the right lane so he could go slow and let other drivers pass him. He was eager to see their reactions. When a Tesla came up from behind, Travis was sure the occupants had gotten a good look at his plates before they swerved into the left lane to get around him. As they whizzed by, Travis turned his head wearing a grin. A passenger in the Tesla flashed Travis an undeniable dirty look.
“Ha! She must be jealous of Texans,” Travis said to himself.
A few more cars passed by but none of the drivers or passengers seemed interested in Travis when he gave them a friendly smile. Then someone driving an Audi appeared to take a close look at Travis’s truck and plates. As he passed by, he glared over and gave Travis a “thumbs down” gesture.
“Huh. Another ignorant person who hates Texas,” Travis said to himself. He wondered why he had not noticed the same thing when he was driving around with his Texas-issued license plates. Maybe he was simply not paying attention to the rampant Texas discrimination. Now that he was sensitized to it, he saw it everywhere.
To Travis’s relief, in his rear-view mirror, he spotted another truck approaching. And it had Texas state plates! “A fellow Texan! A kindred spirit!” Travis thought to himself. Surely the driver of the truck would appreciate the new vanity plates.
As the second truck pulled up alongside him, Travis waved and nodded his head in a friendly gesture. Instead of a friendly wave in return, the truck’s driver held up an angry fist, gunned his engine, and swerved sharply in front of Travis.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong with that guy?” Travis said to himself. “Does he want to be the only Texas truck in town or something? Now he’s jealous of me too?”
Travis had imagined that his first cruise with the vanity plates would be like a parade, except the spectators were supposed to be cheering instead of booing. He needed to get off the road and figure out what was wrong. He decided he might as well grab lunch while he was thinking. He pulled into the parking lot for a small sandwich shop. He had been there several times before and knew the sandwiches were good.
Travis recognized the store’s owner, Sal, as soon as he walked inside. Sal seemed to remember Travis too.
“Ah, you’re back,” called Sal. “Last time you were here you had the roast beef.”
“That’s right,” said Travis, surprised that Sal had remembered.
“What’s with the fancy boots? You weren’t wearing those last time.”
Travis smiled. “They remind me of home.”
“Texas, right?” replied Sal.
“I’m glad you remembered.”
“I never forget a customer. You want the roast beef again?”
“Sure. Same way you fixed it last time.”
After Travis paid for his sandwich, he sat at a table close to the counter and listened to Sal greet everyone who came in. Most of them seemed to be regulars. When a man wearing a red flannel jacket burst into the shop, he shouted toward Sal like they were old friends.
“Hey Sal, you’re not going to believe this, but someone who loves taxes parked a truck in your parking lot.”
“Whattaya mean they love taxes?” called Sal.
“The license plate says ‘Raising Taxes’. It’s not yours, is it?”
“Of course it’s not mine. Why would I want to raise taxes?”
“Maybe it’s some kind of joke,” said the flannel jacket guy.
Travis sunk in his chair. Could they be talking about his license plate? Had the man thought TXS stood for taxes instead of Texas? How could he be that dumb? Why would anyone pay for a license plate celebrating taxes?
The door to the sandwich shop swung open again. A tall woman wearing dark, circular glasses walked in.
“Sal, have you got a politician in here?” the woman called loudly.
“Politician? I don’t think so,” Sal called back.
“Then who else would be driving something with plates that say ‘Raising Taxes’? I mean, that’s a politician’s job, isn’t it?”
“I gotta take a look at this car. Where’s it parked?”
“It’s a truck. Right out there.”
Travis kept his head down. There was no escaping it. When people looked at his plates, they did not see “Raised in Texas.” They saw “Raising Taxes.” No wonder drivers on the road were giving him dirty looks and angry gestures.
He did not want to be the “Raising Taxes” guy. Why had the woman at the DMV not stopped him? She must have seen the way people could interpret the letters.
While Sal was busy making sandwiches, Travis stood up quietly and slipped out of the store. He jogged to his truck and quickly backed out of the parking lot. Instead of taking the direct route home on the crowded main street, he stayed on backroads and residential streets.
Travis had intended to keep his Texas-issued license plates as souvenirs, but when he reached his apartment, he ran to retrieve them from his kitchen table. He practically ripped off the vanity plates and reinstalled his old ones. He would go back to the DMV on Monday and drive with his Texas plates even if they expired before he could get new Delaware ones. The potential cost of a ticket was nothing compared to the humiliation of being the “Raising Taxes” man.
And Travis vowed that the next time he was in line at the DMV, he would not talk with anybody. He could not risk someone like the motorcycle minister tempting his vanity.
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