Nuts to You

Let's say you're walking down the street, when suddenly you see a car parked alongside the road with a license plate that reads "NO NUTS." It's probably the best thing that's happened to you all day, perhaps all month. Now, you have you're trusty camera phone with you, but all around you are...

PEOPLE!!!!


And you suddenly feel a bit awkward whipping out a camera to take a picture of a vanity plate, regardless of how hilarious said vanity plate is. You briefly consider a cover story in case someone wonders why you are taking a picture of someone's license plate (apart from the obvious, "It says NO NUTS"). You'd say that you were involved in an accident and you need photographic evidence for insurance purposes. But that won't work, because the car doesn't appear to have sustained any damage, and you are on foot, so there's no second car. You suppose you could say you were run over, but then you'd have to start limping until you turn the corner. And what if you run into the rare Good Samaritan who wants to help you, a poor injured pedestrian, while the jerk that ran you down is across the street, doing a sudoku and sipping a latte, chuckling to himself about the pain he's brought to you. Is it worth the escalating pile of lies, just to get a stupid picture? I offer that is it not.

Of course, you could just take the picture and not worry about anyone seeing you. So what, right? And anyway, if you had to, you could do that thing were you pretend you're on the phone, but you're really taking a picture. How many times have you gotten away with that one? Too many to count. Well, five. It was five times.

But then, then you think even if you did take the picture, well...then what? You can't put someone's license plate on the internet, can you? I think that's an invasion of privacy or something. Unless that person is a convicted sex offender. I'm pretty sure they put sex offender's license plates on the internet. But then how would you find out if someone's convicted a sex offender? I guess you could run the license plate. Although, if you're plates say "NO NUTS" you're pretty much announcing that you're libido isn't a threat to anyone. Unless that's what you want people to think. Very clever, possible convicted sex offender. Very clever indeed.

So let's say you took a picture, but decide not to post in online because it's probably illegal, or at least immoral to post someone's license plate and you don't want No Nuts tracking you down, because maybe "NO NUTS" doesn't describe the driver, but what he does to people that tick him off. It's a warning! Maybe the car belongs to a militant lesbian gym teacher out to castrate our patriarchal society one pair at a time.

All of this assumes that "NO NUTS" is referring to male danglies. Maybe "NO NUTS" is a former mental patient who was given a clean bill of health. What better way to announce your newfound sanity than with vanity plates? Or it could be someone who's had it up to here with these damn crazies and won't stand for them to be in or anywhere in the area immediately surrounding their car. NO NUTS ALLOWED. Maybe it belongs to a New Orleans fan.

It's probably just someone with a peanut allergy.

Well, whoever it is should have put a little bit more thought into what to put on the license plate.

Posted in: Boston