vanity plates

The idiocy that is vanity plates

I was behind a red car yesterday with a vanity plate of "STMP LDY." I was imagining the driver: a short woman without feet. What else could that mean but "Stump Lady"? While trying to imagine how she pushed the accelerator and brake pedals, I read her license plate frame: "Stampin' it up!" Oh, so I guess there is another thing it could mean. That made me curious about misinterpreted personal plates. I found this article:

May 10, 2009|DeeDee Correll, Correll writes for The Times.

DENVER — All Kelley Coffman-Lee wanted to do was broadcast her love of tofu to the driving public.

So the Colorado vegan applied to the state's Department of Revenue for a vanity license plate for her Suzuki SL7 carrying the message: ILVTOFU.

Application denied.

Not only that, but Coffman-Lee's pithy ode to soy went straight onto the department's list of letter combinations banned under a state law that permits authorities to weed out those applications deemed "offensive to good taste or decency."

Wait, what? There's a list? I want to see that. So my research found that's it's not a national list, but rather each state has it's own "blue list." I fully intended on publishing a few selections from NY's blue list, but found all 9 pages to be filled with hilarious filth contained in 8 characters or less. The only choices I found that I didn't think were that bad are probably over my head and way dirtier than I could imagine. So just in case my mom reads this blog, I won't force you to read any selections by putting them in giant font bold on here. But please note I left the link for any one like me who just can't resist.


P.S. Does anyone else find it funny that we're cracking down on vanity plates? I'm sure the six-year-olds on the sidewalk with the filthy mouths learned their vocabulary somewhere other than a license plate.