Park Plates

Ter and I have long considered putting personal plates our vehicle. The problem is, what to put on them? She wouldn’t be any keener on DURAN E or HOK E HOS than I’d be for FOOD E or WIK N WU. We’d thought of putting JULES on Jules, but it’s good that we didn’t because Jules is no longer with us. As it was, Tiggy inherited his predecessor’s plates, which were at insurance time this year, over twenty years old.

The dilemma would have continued indefinitely had ICBC not ridden to the rescue. Earlier this year, in cooperation with BC Provincial Parks, they’ve issued a number of license plates featuring four “super, natural” vistas—mountains, lakes, forests ... and a spirit bear.

Well, shoot. Problem solved.

The bear plates have been cropping up on cars all over town. The numbering sequence started at PA000A. By the time we got our plates, so many had been sold that the sequence began with PB. “ ‘Peanut Butter’,” I said to Ter at the insurance agent’s office, where we were both required to sign the changeover from our old license number.

She glanced at me, pen in hand, and said nothing.

“Or ‘Panda Bear’,” I continued, musing.

That got a slightly better result, but still no hats and horns. Since our brains are not geared toward accepting blends of letters and numerals, it’s always helped me to use either the phonetic alphabet or make up a word association of my own. For instance, our old plates began with “JBM”, which, in the phonetic alphabet, translates to “Juliet Bravo Mike”. Thanks to my wee sister, who suggested it when I asked what she’d use, it also translated to “Jellybum.”

Anyway, we signed the papers and took our shiny new plates out to the strip mall lot, where a freshly-laundered Tiggy eagerly awaited his new tags. Getting them into the plate holders proved a tad challenging, as the holders have been bashed about but good over the past seven years, but Ter persevered and eventually they slid into place. Affixing them to the bumpers required new screws to replace the old rusted ones (our first stop on this little adventure was the hardware store), and no small skill in lining up the holes. Ter hunkered by the back bumper and spent a while doing just that, with varying degrees of success. Eye to eye with “PB” while her patience gradually thinned, she finally looked up at me and said, “We could also use ‘Pooh Bartz’.”

That did me in. I howled. “Pooh bartz” is an interjection originally coined by my older sister in lieu of a metaphor more colourful while yet residing in our parents’ house (both my sisters have an odd gift for coining words/phrases/sayings), and it’s stayed with me deep into my relationship with Ter. That she would blurt it out in relation to our prized new plates slew me right there in the parking lot.

Later, she tried to override the option with “Polar Bear”, but I fear I was ruined for anything else when it comes to remembering my new license number.

Pooh bartz.