Jeremiah's School of Levitation

Today, I celebrate (oof, argh, yikes) that I saw Satan. On the freeway.

My daily commute to the fact'ry involves, part of the way, crossing a floating bridge that stretches across a sparkly lake, and burrows into bumpy evergreen hills. It is usually a heavenly spectacle; however, it could, in some ways, be hellish, depending upon whether I managed to leave the house at 7 am or at 7:30. The difference between blessed and ungodly, in terms of that commute, is only a matter of those 30 minutes. On this day, I'd left on the early side of the morning and with a levititious cup of 7-11 coffee in my hand (the subject of an upcoming blog, the coffee will be), I was enjoying an uneventful and appreciatively rapid cruise.

When all of a SUDDEN ...

... on my left, a car passed. I glanced at it and, as is my habit, I took a look at the license plate. Oh my. Clearly spelled, without any attempt at clever character-play ("I 8 U" or "Q T"), the plate boldly read ...

"SATAN".

At first, I figured that the 7-11 coffee, with the herbal additives, had accomplished its hallucinatory goal. But, a few hard blinks of my crusty eyes later, the plate still read "SATAN". So, shit-fire, I guess it was real.

I could only laugh, for three reasons:

1) Only in this mossy corner of the Pacific Northwest could you get away with this. Our permissive, liberal culture says of weirdos "Oh, let them be. They are only EXPRESSING themselves. Though their expression hurts me, my repression of their expression hurts EVERYONE. So, I'll just turn a blushing cheek and have some more coffee, and be snitty behind their backs." In contrast, if you were to drive just up the block in the Deep South with "SATAN" on your license plate, you may make it back home with only a couple of bullet wounds, if you drive quickly.

2) How did they ever get the "SATAN" thing past the Department of Motor Vehicles? I thought there was a line on what you could put on a license plate. Does this mean that my dream of putting "VODKA" on my license plate could actually come true? Surely, even the die-est in the heart-est of conservatives would admit that they enjoy a little vodka at night before they would say that they enjoy a nice glass of SATAN at night (the truth, however, may be different)!

3) From the observation that I made as I caught up to the car and glanced at the driver, Satan apparently is an African-American woman, around age 40, who drives a black BMW 325i, and so, thereby, is a fine representative of a diverse upper middle class. I'd expect Satan to more resemble Dick Cheney driving a black Hummer. I could only shrug in approval.

And, so, there was the day's celebration, come early.

Maybe it's French..."Say-tah".

Or maybe she was Santa, and the DMV screwed up her plate.

Ditto on the Satan-as-Cheney image...and he'd have a gunrack in the back.

maybe you live in the only state in the entire union that allows satan to drive identified.

must be all that rain?

I'VE SEEN THAT CAR!

I went home and sacrificed a goat.