July 18: License Plate

I was stopped behind a big Chevy Silverado this morning, black with red trim and designs covering the back window and tailgate that looked like the tattoos on Mike Tyson's face. The trailer hitch was a custom chrome piece that near as I could tell was a bare ass. I'm not sure if it was meant to be suggestive or insulting. Clearly, this was a manly man's truck. Because of the back window decal, I couldn't see the driver, but I quickly formed an image of a burly young guy wearing a Harley-Davidson muscle tee to show off the barbed wire tattoo around his left bicep.

So I had to smile when I noticed that his license plate was one of those new pink ones to support breast cancer awareness. Here's a guy who carefully maintains a tough image via his truck, and yet he cares enough about women's health that he paid extra for that pink license plate, set off nicely by a license plate holder that looks like a heavy-linked chain. There's a story there. And I'm sure it's a touching one that would break some of the stereotypes I'd so quickly formed about the unseen driver ahead of me. (Like the fact that I automatically assumed it was a man... I've certainly known women who would drive a truck like that.)

Even the tough guy
stopped here in the monster truck
cares about his mom.