We were driving back from Milwaukee Airport the other day and got stuck for a while behind an old Civic with a license plate reading DON HNLY. It puzzled me. Are there really people, in 2009, whose commitment to Don Henley is so strong as to demand a personalized license plate? EAGLES, all right, I can see, they still sell out arenas. But solo Don?
Then I started to wonder — what if it is Don Henley? I didn’t have a fully worked-out theory for why Don Henley would be driving an old Civic on westbound I-94, but the idea was appealing. If I were Don Henley, I could totally imagine buying a modest vehicle, registering it with a personalized license plate advertising myself, then enjoying the reaction whenever I climbed out at a rest stop — the magnificent triple-take from “That guy has a Don Henley license plate!” to “That guy with the Don Henley license plate is a ringer for Don Henley!” to “Can it really be….”
So I cruised along behind the Civic, in no hurry, enjoying my fantasy, until everything was ruined by the Impala in the passing lane with the MENTORS plate.
The weirdest personalized license plate I ever saw said FLATWARE.