I was driving recently and noted that the truck in front of me had a license plate that read:
UR A 2L
Which I would translate as “you are a tool”
Really? What kind of a person must this be to broadcast that kind of attitude 24/7? And to go to the trouble of a personalized plate. And the arrogance – I’m guessing – that they themselves are the only non-tool in a sea of tools. I wonder how much road rage they have generated? I wasn’t enraged myself, but a little offended once I had translated the letters.
In other news… I helped one of my neighbors get tags for his dogs. He was a little delayed in getting the license for them and I went with him to get the actual tags for their collars. We went into Pet Supplies Plus and right over to the tag kiosk where a woman was standing in front of the machine – chatting with two other women. We waited patiently and I noticed that there was a screen saver running on the machine. I gave her about 30 seconds, then approached.
“Excuse me,” I said, “Are you using this machine?”
“Yes,” she lied, “And you need a code to use it,”
So, we went over to the cash register and my friend bought the tags for the dogs. We went back over to the machine where the woman was now finished with her conversation and was just getting started on the machine. We waited while she took two phone calls (to determine what address to put on the tags) as she keyed in the information. Suddenly she stopped and turned to us with a panicked look on her face.
“I need help,” she said, “Which lettering should I use?”
Now, let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
- Font choice is not something to panic over.
- As a web developer, I’m actually qualified to help in this regard, but she didn’t know that.
- It really didn’t freaking matter what font she picked. She named the dog Goober. The sooner the text on the tag wears off and the dog escapes – the better for the dog.
I picked the font on the far right because it was more readable and she moved on. While the tag was being printed, she proceeded to strike up a conversation with us. In the span of maybe 2 minutes she decided to tell us:
- She had dumped her boyfriend and bought a $950 whippet.
- She could have picked up the dog before now, but had been deployed and didn’t want the dog to have to stay at her mom’s
- She would be picking up the dog on August 20th.
Before she left, she pointed out the code on the receipt – though this was a explained on the screen for us later – and proceeded on her merry, if slightly insane, way.
We got the tags done in record time and were out the door in less time than it took to finish her conversation while she was blocking using the machine.
What have we learned from all of this?
That license plate was meant for her.