:CNCRSVR, LKRDING, and FLY

I am driving to work and I see this on a license plate:  :cncrsvr . You should know that North Carolina is the vanity plate capital of the world. At least, I’ve never seen more in my travels.  If you want BLUDVL or TRHELZ1, you can forget it. I’ve even seen LKRDING, which my Dutch friend, Floor, taught me to say. Lekkerding! means delicious thing! as in, “Look at that guy. Lekkerding!” It’s one of my favorite games to figure vanity plates out, even though my inner debutante thinks they’re a little tacky.

:cncrsvr, which is brilliant, I take to mean “colon cancer survivor.” My English teacher side is so pleased by the use of punctuation, by the thoughtfulness of the whole thing, and by the boldness of stamping something so tenuous in metal and putting it on your car for all the world to see. I’m also proud that I’ve figured out the code. I pass :cncrsvr  and want to wave or something, but I know :cncrsvr will have no idea why I’m waving, so I go on to work.  

My car has an empty license plate holder on the front, and it is driving Jeff crazy. “It just looks bad,” he says, ever the artist. “Let me a get you a license plate.” I resist, for the same reason I could never get a tattoo: What would be the right word or image to define me? There are way too many turtle tattoos in the world. And rabid Duke fan that I am, there are way too many Duke license plates. Finally, I remember that we found my parents’ old favorite license plate “I’d Rather Be Flying!” when we cleaned up their stuff. I don’t have it though, so Jeff gets me one that says “FLY”—you know the one that’s like a magic eye? Where you have to really look to see it? I am terrible at magic eye, but I see this. Still, I resist putting it on.

The other day, though, Leigh Ann sent me a message with one of those Internet memes she likes. Usually, I think those are a little too easy, sometimes even trite. This one says: FLY=First Love Yourself.  Ok. But then Leigh Ann says, “Too bad Mother didn’t see the word this way. Well, then again, maybe flying was the only way she did.”

Of course, I will put that license plate on my car now, so I don’t forget.  Maybe someone passing me will get it and wave.