NFR: Number plates ...

[cebu]

... and their messages (from yesterday's Daily Reckoning):


"You know, I always try to figure out what license plates are telling me."

The person speaking was probably insane. But you come across a lot of insane people.

He was an electrician we call from time to time. "Sparky," we call him. Maybe he had been shocked too often.

"Well, the numbers mean something. You just have to figure them out. Last night, for example, I saw a license tag with 8 7 59 on it. Well, I knew it was talking to me. Because that was the day I was born. The 7th of August, 1959.

"But why was it speaking to me? Well, I had to read the other license plates and try to decipher it. It's not easy. And it's not always clear. I mean sometime they give you lottery numbers to play. Sometimes they tell you who you should be talking to.

"After I saw my birth date, for example, I saw 301. Well, I knew what that meant. I had to call my mother. That's her area code.

"But I was looking at the auto tags so much, I almost ran into a cement truck. His license tag was a warning. It was 666, you know, the mark of the beast. It was telling me to stay away...watch out for the devil and all his works."

*** What's the matter with apples? Half of them are inedible. We had a beautiful Delicious apple yesterday. Looked great. But the skin was tough. And the fruit was mealy.

That's the trouble. They're meant to look good. Hotels put them in baskets. Businesses display them. They're everywhere. More than half are probably thrown away. They're decorative items. Not foodstuffs.

Some people are like that too.