The Bruce Scribes

I’m thinking about getting a special plate for my absurdly small, 2012 Nissan Versa, because, you know, that’s how I roll: Like a cheapskate.

But what I lack in financial muscle, I more than compensate in my desperate desire to be noticed by complete strangers. As for the plate, I have a few ideas: ‘BGBRN’, ‘FAKNWS’, ‘TRMPHTR’, ‘MUDTWNIE’, and my current favourite, ‘CRFRSALE’.

Fortunately, I haven’t chosen from the list of officially banned varieties in the province of New Brunswick. According to reporter Michael Robinson of Brunswick News these include: ‘BACON’, ‘FORSALE’, ‘GUILTY’, ‘LUV BUG’, ‘OMG/OMG’, ‘RZNHELL’, ‘SAUCY’, ‘SPYDR’, ‘TEQUILA’, and ‘YWA’.

BACON? Really people? Even the vegetarians I know don’t consider bacon real meat. It’s more like a garnish on a fine Caesar salad. No?

Still, that’s nothing. Consider this report from the U.K.’s Daily Mail last December: “Some people express themselves through fashion, others their taste in music. And for a smaller cross-section of Americans, there are those that take great pride in their creative vanity license plates. In 2007, some 9.7 million cars in America had vanity license plates – with the largest percentage of these plates in Virginia, Illinois and Nevada. While many vanity license plates reference family names or inside jokes, there are others that are meant to appeal to every driver on the road. Jokesters who come up with these license plates use just a handful of characters to spark a ‘Ha’ or a full on bout of laughter from their fellow drivers on the road.”
Here, according to that report, are just some of the ‘vanities’ approved: A Nevada licence plate that reads ‘IH8PPL’; a Virginia one that urges you to “eat the kids first”; a Texas one that rather existentially declares that it is, in fact, affixed to a car; and an Alaska one that rudely suggests ‘UFARTD’.

In this vein, then, gentle reader, CTV news reported only two days ago: “Nova Scotia’s transportation minister is standing behind a decision to rescind Lorne Grabher’s namesake licence plate, even if the province is forced to defend their actions in court. The Nova Scotia Registrar of Motor Vehicles informed Grabher they would be revoking his custom ‘GRABHER’ plate. Grabher’s lawyer said he is planning legal action, citing freedom of expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, unless the Department of Transportation overturns the decision by Thursday.”

The news item further explained: “Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan confirmed it was a single complaint that triggered the review. He said the decision to revoke the plate reflects the best interest of Nova Scotians.

‘If court is the ultimate process, then we’ll let the court do their work,’ said MacLellan. ‘We certainly feel for the gentleman, and the family, but the reality is that there are a set of procedures and a decision making process.’”

I’ve always wondered why we, in Canada, have not adopted the rural English habit of leaving our licence plates entirely alone in favour of ‘naming’ our domiciles. There, across the pond, you will find pretty, little (and large) country houses called Mulberry Lodge, The Old Vicarage, Bag End, and Oakroyd. The postal service arrives promptly, and so does the milkman. No numbers need be recorded.

Here, in New Brunswick, where we are desperate to be noticed by people we don’t know, we could begin by attaching monikers to our over-taxed dwellings: ‘An idiot lives here in this crescent’, ‘I went to Las Vegas and all I got was this lousy, leaky bungalow’, ‘I came, I saw, I lost my nest egg’.

Now, that’s how real vanity rolls.