Last week, I saw a young woman driving a small blue sedan with personalized license plates: “LLB?SK8”. I couldn’t imagine at her age possessing enough faith in a relationship to have it embossed on metal for all the world to see. What would she say to the DMV clerk if (or more likely, WHEN) her relationship ended? Let’s listen in on the conversation:

“Good afternoon, Department of Motor Vehicles.”
“Hi, this is Linda—”
“Yes, Miss Barnes, how can I help you?”
“Excuse me, ma’am, but how did you know my name?”
“You called our 800 number.”
“Oh, right. Caller ID.”
“Wonders of technology, eh?”
“I guess so. Uh, listen, I need to make a change—in my license plate—you know—get a new one?”
“Was the old one lost or stolen?”
“Well, no, it’s just that—”
“Ah, the relationship crashed, did it?”
“What?”
“Your current license plate—‘LLB?SK8’—dead giveaway. You must have been in love with SOMEBODY to order a special plate like that. What happened?”
“It just didn’t work out.”
“Hmm. I can see from our records that this is your fifth license change in three years.”
“That many? Guess I musta lost track.”
“Did he dump you, or did you dump HIM?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not a trick question, Miss Barnes. Did you dump him, or did he dump you?”
“A little of both, I guess.”
“Right. He dumped you. How come?”
“Uh—don’t you think that’s kinda personal?”
“Listen, hon, you can talk to me. I hear stories, you know—all kinds. Maybe I can help.”
“Oh. Well, at first he was—you know—it was just about perfect. I thought he was my dream man. But then—he started stayin’ out all night—”
“You mean you let him move in with you? This ‘Mr. SK8?’
“Uh-huh.”
“Big mistake. I say, don’t let ‘em move in ‘til you got a big rock on your finger and the date set.”
“Uh-uh—well, what do YOU know? I mean, have you ever been in love so bad you’d do—you’d do—WHATEVER—? ”
“Look, hon, do the words ‘rode hard and put away wet’ mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s how my friends describe me—on a good day. I’ve been around the block with men so many times it’s not even funny.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I get so—I just can’t stop cryin’—you’d think by now that—”
“You’d get used to it?”
“Yeah.”
“Honey, the heart don’t like being tore up like that, never has, never will. It’s a shame how that works—a cryin’ shame. By the way, what happened to the guy before that— ‘Mr. BGBY’—uh, Big Boy?”
“He—uh, didn’t work much, but that wasn’t so bad because I knew he was trying, but then I found stuff, you know, drug stuff in his truck and then he got mad—said I was snoopin’ on him—”
“Oh, boy.”
“Do you think I’m pathetic?”
“That’s not the word I’d use, hon. You seem young, is all. Young in the head, young in the heart—and a tad desperate.”
“Desperate?”
“Well, three years, five different license plates? Guess it could have been worse, though. You could have had their names tattooed on your butt or something—”
“Uh—”
“No! Oh, my, that’s gotta hurt—especially getting them removed—not to mention the expense and—”
“Only two—I only got tattoos for the last two men—it did hurt a little, though—”
“My advice? Don’t settle in with any old guy until you find the one that wants to put YOUR initials on HIS license plate!”
“Huh. You know, ma’am, you got me to thinking—how about something like, oh, I don’t know—‘M-Y-W-Y-O-R-H-W-Y’? Can you get me one like that ?”
“Now you’re talkin’, hon! ‘My Way Or The Highway!’ You’ll have it next week.”
Rosie Sorenson’s work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Contra Costa Times, and the Berkeley Daily Planet. Her essays have also been broadcast on KQED-FM as part of its Perspectives series. Her essay “Safe Haven” was named Listener Favorite for 2006. She won Honorable Mention in the Erma Bombeck International Writing Contest. Her work also appears in the upcoming 25th Anniversary edition of Mobius, the Poetry Journal. Readers can read more of her work at www.damngoodwriters.com.