Giggly, gurgly voices came from the red Corolla that pulled beside me at the Copans and Dixie intersection. The pixieish blonde in the passenger rolled down the window and asked, over the blaring Grateful Dead background, “Hey, what’s the 2U CAR license plate mean, hot stuff?”
I hadn’t been hot stuff to a girl for twenty years, but like whatever. These coeds were probably coming from some rock concert out west at the National Car Rental Center (on moral grounds, I wouldn’t go near the place if Shakespeare came down from heaven and asked me himself) and decided to have some fun with my vanity plate. So what’s it to them? I got me a vanity plate.
“Like, I hate this car and I want someone to steal it,” I said. Luck was on my side, and the light turned green and I hit the accelerator – but not before the pixie asked, ya wanna get rid of a BMW …
I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the red Corolla get smaller and smaller. Two blocks later, I got onto Interstate 95 and pushed it up past 80. My vanity plate, you know – like I was going to tell a bunch of college kids about my 2U car.
Memory went back, nearly forty years … that little car I got on my fifth birthday. I drove around in that little thing for what, three, four years? Even now, I can remember the anticipation, knowing it was coming, and I can remember that Saturday afternoon, five days before my birthday, running down the stairs to the basement. Mom was doing laundry, Dad was sanding a new bench. And there it stood in the corner, fire engine red, blue and silver stripes down each side, brand new pedals in the middle.
“There it is!” I said, squeaky-voiced and jumping up and down. “There’s my happy-birthday-to-you car!”
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