My most recent post entitled “You’re Going the Wrong Way” was my first collaboration with my wife (other than our two kids).  I unknowingly provided her with the first blog post for her to edit.  While I was already asleep in bed she was busy editing my post and deleting anything she felt unsavory or that her family would find objectionable.  I can’t bring myself to reread the post after she put her final touches on it,  but it does frighten me that I am losing creative control over my own blog.  I routinely ask  myself if I am running into a Bill Simmons/ESPN situation?   She actually told me “I took that stuff out about our kids being in the hot tub with a bunch of naked guys because I knew my family wouldn’t find that funny.”  What she doesn’t realize is that I have three people who receive email alerts every time I post a new blog and none of them are her family members, by blood at least.  I’m catering to their tastes, or what I think are their tastes and they are the people keeping the lights on, not her family.  (I would encourage everyone who enjoys my blog to sign up for the email alerts so that you don’t have to continually check back to see if I have posted something new)  I realize it is somewhat presumptive of me to think people actually check this blog site for new material but if anyone other than the three individuals who are receiving email alerts are keeping an eye on this, sign up for the notifications it will be painless and also convenient.

Secondly, my brother said I have a lot of typos on my blog.  Hopefully it is not to the point where I am writing indiscernible thoughts on this blog.  While I would like to have a flawless blog, I have hobbies like basketball and watching sports that distract me from writing my blog and I also have a job and family that require my occasional attention.  On top of that, I’m battling genetics, I inherited my mom’s “I’m in a hurry to get things done gene” which causes me to type furiously and wind up putting there where it’s suppose to be they’re or other similar grammatical errors.  Those of you who haven’t been plagued by this gene be thankful,  everything I do is a race to get done as fast as I possibly can.  I am fairly cognizant of  proper grammar I just don’t have the patience or time to makes sure it is fully utilized in my blog posts.   Hopefully with Shirley taking over as editor and chief of this thing that problem will be solved or at least reduced.  Granted, I realize there will be a trade off, it won’t be nearly as humorous and cleverly written if it is edited to cater to her family, but it will be much less confusing.  That being said, on to my blog post.

Yesterday, I was heading into work after a long weekend of relaxing with the family and watching copious amounts of football.  Mondays are typically brutal, but when you are coming off a four day weekend they are almost as dreadful as going for  a vasectomy and knowing there isn’t going to be any anesthesia.  My mood was a -1 on a scale of 1-10 and as I was driving I spotted a Ford Focus ahead of me on the highway with a vanity plate that read ADVOC8.  The guy looked like a total dweeb and although I couldn’t tell from my vantage point, I’m guessing he was wearing a bow tie.  On top of that I’m quite sure he had every single episode of LA Law on VHS stored in his current residence, his mom’s basement.  I was unable to get in front of him to see if he had a front plate that read DBAG, but I’m pretty sure the State of Michigan wouldn’t hand out ADVOC8 without a matching front plate to go with it, besides making the person purchase a front plate would be added revenue.  Part of me was hoping an 18 wheeler would come up on the guy and flatten his Ford Focus.  Does that make me a terrible human being for wishing that upon him or is that what everyone else on the highway thought as well?  I fully realize I am a dick,  but that can not be the reason.

This is the reason, or one of the reasons, I am a dick.  I thought to myself you can’t have that license plate and drive a Ford Focus.  Ford Focuses are perfectly fine cars but they are not meant for ass kicking lawyers.  A big ass Cadillac with a wet bar in the back is meant for lawyers that kick ass.  A gigantic Mercedes Benz that drives itself is meant for a kick ass lawyer, even a Ford F-350 Platinum would be suitable for an attorney with ADVOC8 as their personalized license plate, as long as they also trailer dozens of head of cattle as a hobby.

Passing that tool bag on the highway I felt like there should be some type of lawyering threshold in order for this dick weed to be able so procure the ADVOC8 vanity plate.  Maybe winning a 5 million dollar verdict, arguing successfully in front of the US Supreme Court, or having your own dog bite sign on the side of the highway would all be things that warranted granting a request for such a vanity plate. Enjoying your job as an attorney and wanting to let everyone occupying the road with you that you are an attorney is not a basis to receive ADVOC8 as your license plate.  If anything, the guy should have his bar card shredded and his law license revoked.  Who likes practicing law enough that they get a vanity license plate commemorating it?  If people ask me what I do and they don’t know me, I go out of my way to pretend I am anything but an attorney.  One time we were visiting Shirley’s grandma at the rest home.  Her grandma had Alzheimer’s and repeatedly asked me what I did. Finally, I told her I was an astronaut, it felt awesome to be able to say that and it stopped her from continuing to ask me what my vocation was.  I guess the moral of that story is, if you want someone to remember what you do for a living tell them you are an astronaut.

What perplexed me the most about my fellow barrister who wasn’t afraid to let the world know about it, was the type of plate he had.  In Michigan we have a number of options for our license plates.  The bottom of the barrel run of the mill plate is the blue and white plate, it’s the cheerios version of license plates.  This guy had that exact plate to tell the world he was an attorney.  I’m guessing he didn’t have one of the university or college plates because he probably didn’t want the world to know he went to some pedestrian school and he’s probably so bad at being an attorney he couldn’t afford to part with the ten dollars it would have costed him to upgrade to a deluxe plate.  So, he was rocking the standard plate, which is the plate I had utilized almost my entire driving career.

Being Dutch was the main obstacle keeping me from purchasing an upgraded license  plate, not my proficiency as an attorney.  However, one of my buddies wanted to put that final exclamation point on his new Jeep Overlander so he went with the Mackinaw Bridge plate.  Immediately when I saw the plate on his Grand Cherokee I knew I had to have one.  Ultimately I ended up going directly to the SOS to trade in my vanilla plate for the Mackinaw Bridge plate instead of ordering it online.  I couldn’t wait to affix that thing to my F-150, that Mackinaw Bridge with the sun setting behind it was going to be just what the doctor ordered to accentuate the back of my truck, I also thought about getting that thing you hang from your trailer hitch that looks like balls but that seemed a little over the top.  I forked over the money for the new plate as well as my old plate and took my plate out of the plastic, AMY 536.  What were the chances of that happening?  I was even less deserving of my plate than ADVOC8 was of his.  To this very day I regret not going back and asking for a different plate.  I am routinely referred to as AMY 536 by my buddy who drives the Uplander and when I was meeting a fellow barrister for drinks a couple weeks ago he said “I was going to park next to a truck that looked like yours but it had a license plate that read AMY 536, so I knew it wasn’t yours and I parked somewhere else.”  Looks like I may have to move to the Spectacular Peninsulas plate.