by Doug DeMuro
So a few days after I mailed in my form, the personalized plate database switched “HONORING OUR VETERANS” license plate number 1 from “available” to “not available.” I was ecstatic, because this meant I had gotten my plate. I would be number one. Number ONE! I would be FIRST! TOP OF THE HEAP! NUMERO UNO!!! RIGHT HERE, BABY!!!! BOO-YAAAAAA!
And then, three days later, they switched number 2 from “available” to “not available.”
What did this mean? Was I number 1? Or number 2? Had someone beaten me to number 1? Or did someone else apply for 1, 2, and 3, and get stuck with number 2? Certainly nobody got in their application before me, right? I mailed the thing with hospital heart transplant urgency! IT WAS PROBABLY STILL BEATING WHEN IT ARRIVED AT THE DMV!!! Did someone out there hand-deliver their form?? WITH A HELICOPTER?!?!?
Suddenly, I knew the agony Al Gore must’ve felt when they were counting those chads in Florida.
After six weeks of waiting, it finally came in the mail: I was number 2. Although I’ve never been able to verify this, I suspect some random DMV employee saw my application and had his first original thought since he decided to drop out of high school and pursue a career in license plate management, namely: I could be number 1! So he assigned himself number 1, and I got stuck with number 2, and now everybody behind me knows I am almost incredibly cool.
Actually, I don’t really mind being number 2. Everyone else is JYC-4294 and P56-ECR and 4MD2817, and number 2 is still way better than all of those. It’s like being at a zoo that has panda bears, and you’re an elephant. You aren’t worried about getting ignored. People are still going to think you’re cool. You have ears the size of office furniture.
So, what’s it like driving around with license plate number 2?
As it turns out, it gets noticed more often than I expected. I frequently see people pointing to it, or staring at me as they pass, or photographing it at traffic lights. Earlier this year, a guy in a Jeep Wrangler asked me if I was “the Vice President.” An elderly woman in a Subaru Forester recently approached me at a gas station and inquired in astonishment how I could’ve possibly gotten license plate number two. When I told her that it was available and I simply applied for it, she walked away with the sort of bewilderment one might expect if I had informed her I was currently carrying on a consensual relationship with a rhinoceros, and we were expecting twins.
Last summer, I took a trip to Nantucket, which is this wealthy island off Massachusetts whose primary benefit for a car enthusiast is that you get to drive all over the beach. Before we left, I applied online for my beach-driving permit, and then I waited for it, and I waited for it, and I waited for it, and it never came. So I called up the person at the Town of Nantucket who issues beach driving permits—her name is Linda and the phone goes to voicemail when she takes bathroom breaks—and I asked her if there was something delaying my permit.
“Well, sir,” she replied, “your application was flagged.”
“Flagged?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “You filled out the form incorrectly.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, for license plate, you just wrote ‘2,’” she said.
“That’s my license plate!” I argued.
“Just ‘2’?” she said.
“Yes!” I replied.
“The number 2?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“Nothing else?”
She finally agreed to issue my permit when I offered to go outside and take a picture of the license plate for her.
Apparently, Linda didn’t remember me, because she sent me an e-mail the next year with the very same snag: your application got flagged because you wrote that your license plate number is “2.” This time, I sent her a photo of the license plate before the conversation went any further. The permit arrived the following week.
But the very best part about the number 2 license plate comes when I go to Washington, D.C.
The reason for this is something I have not yet explained: my “HONORING OUR VETERANS” license plate, in addition to bearing the number 2, also includes an image of an American flag and a bald eagle. Meanwhile, I’ve placed a thick, black license plate frame around the part that actually says “HONORING OUR VETERANS,” which means that it’s completely covered up. So to the casual observer, there’s just an American flag, a bald eagle, and the number 2.
Meanwhile, there’s a provision in Washington, D.C. law that exempts members of Congress from parking tickets when on “official business,” noting that they are allowed to park in “any available curb space,” as long as it’s not in front of a fire hydrant.
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
Now, I have no idea why this law exists, but it does exist, and I’ve always operated my life under one very particular theory: when life gives you a number 2 license plate, exploit every possible privilege that goes along with it.
So whenever I go to Washington, D.C.—a place that exempts members of Congress from parking restrictions—I’m driving around with a license plate that has an American flag, a bald eagle, the number 2, and nothing else.
Now, let’s be clear: I’m not explicitly stating that I am a member of Congress. I merely leave the D.C. Parking Authority to draw whatever conclusions they want.
Needless to say, this is like a parking permit that lets you do whatever you want, and I use it at every possible opportunity. I’ve parked in spaces marked “U.S. Senate Permit Only.” I’ve parked in spaces marked “Supreme Court Parking Only.” And although I respect important things like disabled spots and loading zones, I’ve spent entire days parked in neighborhoods where the local signs angrily insist that you can only park there for two hours. To date, I haven’t received even a slap on the wrist.
I only hope the guy who has “1” appreciates this privilege as much as I do.
That bastard.
The Angry Woman at the Saturn Dealer
When I was in college, I worked at a Saturn dealership. This seemed like a good idea at the time, much in the same way that eating dirt seems like a good idea to a child, or sharing needles seems like a good idea to people from Florida.
I hated working at the Saturn dealership, largely because my employment coincided with the closure of the Saturn brand, which left everyone a bit mopey. By this I mean that we would come in to work each morning without any knowledge of whether we still had our jobs. This affected our ability to attract talent to the point where I believe the only interview question our managers would’ve asked, near the end, was: Have you ever killed someone? And even if you had, you probably still could’ve convinced them to hire you if you had a really good explanation, such as: Yes, but he looked at my woman.
One particularly bad employee was the finance manager, a big guy named Terrence, who was awful in every sense of the word. Terrence was obnoxious, annoying, and sleazy. Terrence was the kind of guy who would cheat on his wife with another woman, and get her pregnant, and then cheat on that woman with a third woman, and get her pregnant, and then when they all found about each other and angrily confronted him in an epic battle of pissed-off mistresses that inevitably took place on his lawn, he would go on Facebook and post a status that asked: “Why the f*** are women so annoying?”
Terrence was also the worst kind of finance manager, because he’d pressure the customers to an almost unbelievable level when they came to buy a car. Conversations with Terrence were legendary. As an example:
Terrence: “Do you want VIN etching?”
Woman Buying Saturn: “No.”
Terrence: “Are you sure you don’t want VIN etching?”
Woman Buying Saturn: “Yes.”
Terrence: “Let me tell you about the great deal I can get you on VIN etching.”
Woman Buying Saturn: “I don’t want it.”
Terrence: “I’m sorry, you said you DO want it?”
Woman Buying Saturn: “I think what I want is a Toyota from the dealer next door.”
Terrence, on Facebook: “Why the f*** are women so annoying?”
So one day, this really nice woman comes in. I’ve forgotten her name, but I’ll call her Sue. Sue worked as an administrative assistant in a public school, and she had recently totaled her Nissan Sentra when someone hit her in a parking lot. So she wanted a new (used) Nissan Sentra; the exact same car she had before. She had a nice big insurance payout, and we had a nice used Sentra on the lot. This should’ve been a slam-dunk deal; one step short of a guy walking in with his title in his pocket and a briefcase full of cash, screaming: I WANT AN AURA! I WANT AN AURA!!!! (Terrence: “That’s great, sir, and what kind of VIN etching do you want with your Aura?”)
So I took Sue out for a test drive in the Sentra. She was, in my estimation, the single sweetest woman in the history of humankind; just a nice, mild-mannered, soft-spoken school employee who barely even wanted to drive beyond our dealership’s parking lot because she didn’t want to “take me away from the other customers.” Isn’t that sweet? The other customers. “Sue,” I wanted to tell her. “This is a Saturn dealer during the recession. We could spend the entire afternoon at Six Flags without taking me away from the other customers.”
Anyway: as expected, she enjoyed driving the Sentra because it was just like her old one, so then we went back to the dealership to talk terms. Sue’s case should’ve been easy: she had a job, she had half the car’s value as a down payment, and she knew exactly what she wanted. I told her it would probably work out just fine, but I would have to run her credit just to be sure. No problem, said Sue. She’d come back the next day and pick up the Sentra. It seemed like a done deal.
Then Terrence got involved.
“Listen, man,” Terrence told me on the phone, when he called me later that evening. “That lady, Sue? We can’t get her financed on the Sentra. We’re going to get her on a PT Cruiser. So when she comes back tomorrow, we’re going to park the Sentra around back and tell her we sold it, and you’re going to talk her into a PT Cruiser.”
Ladies and gentlemen, Terrence.
Reading between the lines in Terrence’s statement, here’s what I figured out: Terrence had no problem getting Sue financed on the PT Cruiser or the Sentra, since they were both about the same model year and the same price. But the PT Cruiser had been at our dealership for much longer than the Sentra, on account of the fact that it was, through no fault of its own, a PT Cruiser. So Terrence wanted to see it go—and he figured the easiest way for that to happen would be to pawn it off on Sue.
Of course, Terrence hatched this plan because he figured Sue was a sweet old woman who wouldn’t really know or care about the difference between a Sentra and a PT Cruiser, much in the same way that Terrence didn’t know or care about the difference between “tax deductible business expense” and “new tires for mistress’s personal vehicle” on his IRS forms.
Unfortunately, Terrence outranked me at the dealership, so I had no choice but to go along with his ridiculous scheme. It was decided that the next day, when sweet old Sue returned to buy her Sentra, we would park the little Nissan around back, tell her we sold it, and try to convince her to buy the PT Cruiser instead. This in spite of the fact that the entire reason she came to our dealership in the first place was that she totaled her Sentra and wanted to replace it with another Sentra.
Now, at this point, I have to admit I’m not really sure what I was expecting to happen when Sue showed up later that day. I figured it could go either way: Sue could walk into the dealership to buy the Sentra, accept the PT Cruiser instead because she was so sweet and soft-spoken, and go on with her life, now dramatically more unpleasant because she was driving a PT Cruiser. Or she could walk into the dealership to buy the Sentra, meekly express her sadness that we sold the one she wanted, and walk out. If that happened, I assumed Terrence would step in and announce that she could still get the Sentra after all, that it was just in back, that we’d made a mistake, and we hadn’t sold it, because while a sold PT Cruiser might be better than a sold Sentra, a sold Sentra was better than nothing.
Instead, we got option number three.
Sue came in right on time the next day with her big down payment, and I greeted her at the door. Then I timidly informed her that the Sentra was gone and would she instead like to see a PT Cruiser? Actually, “timidly” doesn’t describe it well enough. Imagine telling your sweet, elderly grandmother that it was you who stole her VCR, and you did it while you were high on meth, and oh yeah, you also poke children in the eyeballs for sport. That’s what this was like.
As expected, Sue expressed a little displeasure at what she was being asked to do: swap out her beloved Sentra for a PT Cruiser. So I directed her to Terrence’s office, saying that he could explain it a bit better. If we were really going to execute this charade, I certainly didn’t want to be the only one involved. So she walked over to see Terrence and I sat down at my desk, wondering why my life situation involved lying to a sweet old woman who was trying to buy an eight-year-old Nissan.
That’s when the screaming started.
And the cursing.
It was directed at Terrence, and it was coming from Sue. “YOU SON OF A B****!” Sue yelled. “I DON’T WANT A PT CRUISER! YOU’RE SCREWING ME! I WANT A SENTRA, YOU ASSHOLE! THIS IS NOT F***ING OK!” Remember the sweet, elderly grandmother to whom you just admitted stealing her VCR and poking children’s eyeballs? Well, it turns out she eats human flesh as a hobby.
Sue ran out of Terrence’s office, and the tirade continued throughout the dealership until it finally reached my desk. “F*** YOU! F*** YOU FOR DOING THIS!” Sue screamed at me. This was a woman who just yesterday had been afraid to push the Sentra’s brake pedal because she didn’t want to “hurt it.” She continued: “I AM NOT BUYING A F***ING PT CRUISER WHEN YOU ALREADY PROMISED ME A SENTRA! I HAVE HALF THE MONEY UP FRONT FOR A DOWN PAYMENT AND YOU’RE TRYING TO PULL THIS? F*** YOU!”
And with that, she stormed out of the dealership, rightfully pissed at a business that tried to pull a classic bait-and-switch on what they had assumed was an unassuming old woman. It was raining that day and I still remember walking back to my desk, sitting down, and staring at my computer for a few minutes, unable to process why anyone would try to take advantage of someone like that, and why Terrence didn’t just let me sell the old woman the damn Sentra.
Eventually Terrence walked up to me. Terrence, who worked hard to cement the reputation that all car dealerships are sleazy. Terrence, who had just ruined my incredibly easy deal with a customer who had a 50 percent down payment and didn’t even need a test drive. Terrence, who had tried to take advantage of a sweet, old woman. Terrence, who had probably completed more online dating profiles in his life than high school classes.
“Man,” said Terrence. “What was with her attitude?”
I quit two weeks later.
That Time My Old G-Wagen Killed Those People
As many of you know, I like to run Carfax reports on my old cars to see where they ended up. Like I mentioned earlier for those of you who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, Carfax reports can show information like a vehicle’s registration history, service records, accident or flood damage, and emissions tests in order to help car buyers understand what a car has been through before they buy it. Carfax reports can also show when a car has killed somebody, like my old Mercedes G-Wagen did.
Before I get into this story, a note about my old G-Wagen. I bought it from a tremendously unscrupulous used car dealer in Nashville, Tennessee, who was desperate to find someone who could take it off his hands. Initially, I thought this was because Nashville isn’t exactly a G-Wagen market, in the same sense that Mongolia isn’t exactly a Burberry market. Eventually, I discovered the real reason: because this particular G-Wagen, having spent its early life in Massachusetts, had so much rust on the bottom that it looked like the kind of thing Robert Ballard would’ve brought back as a souvenir from the Titanic.
So I had my G-Wagen for precisely
a month: I bought it from this dealer for the clean retail value, I discovered the rust, and I sold it to CarMax for the clean wholesale value. In the process, I lost thousands of dollars and learned a valuable lesson: when you buy a car from Massachusetts, you want to do more than just take it for a test drive. You also want to kick it really hard to see if it splits in two.
Once I had sold the G-Wagen, I had absolutely no doubt the ensuing Carfax report was going to be bizarre. After all, we were talking about an old, rusty, high-mileage G-Wagen going to a CarMax wholesale auction in the American South.
I just had no idea how bizarre it would be.
In the years after I sold my G-Wagen, it bounced all over the kinds of places where people would want a rusty G-Wagen—namely, suburban Birmingham, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle. When I ditched it, the rust was all-consuming: the exhaust had rusted through, leaving gaping holes that made the truck sound a like large transport vehicle from another era, such as the bus where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Also, the brake lines had rusted, and the frame wasn’t looking too good, either. Whoever got this car from CarMax must’ve spent a small fortune (or a large one) on rust repair. And then—presumably when they were tired of dealing with the fact that an old G-Wagen is approximately as durable as a lined notecard—they traded it in to Veterans Ford, in Tampa, Florida, who sold it to the current owner.