Fortunate Sighting

Cooper and His Bowl Full of Cash

For the past couple of years, our family has been keeping track of license plates on cars that we see from the various states as we are out and about. To keep it fun and interesting, we start a new list each month. Over time, some rules have evolved, the main one being that a find must be verified by another family member - no solo plate-sighting counts, even for the adults. Another is that the twins can't verify each others sightings. While they are not fond of this rule, it has been made necessary by the fact that even the most casual drive around the block with them will elicit shouted and insistent claims that they have found the likes of Idaho, North Carolina and Texas. Owen, however, has developed a keen eye and can identify the plates of all 50 states at distances that would make an eagle jealous.

The holy grails of plates have always been Hawaii and Alaska. There was much excitement when we finally found an Alaskan plate on a weather-beaten pick-up truck upon walking out of a roadside diner in Georgia of all places a couple of years ago (Alaska to Georgia is some drive!). Then, on a trip to San Diego last year, we bagged our first two Hawaiian plates in what remains a record-setting trip and month. Sightings of Canadian Province plates and Baja California, Mexico are always exciting as well.

Prior to our recent trip to Hawaii, we were talking as a family about what license plates we might see there. The general assumption seemed to be that they would be exclusively Hawaii license plates, since there is no way to drive in or out. I, however, suspected there would be some others, since transferees and military personnel might, in some cases, be shipping their cars there on freighters. Deanna, quite sure I was wrong, boldly proclaimed at dinner one night that if any of the kids found a Connecticut plate in Hawaii, she would give them $100. I thought that was a foolish bet to make, and in the days leading up to the trip, I gave the boys a choice - either 1) we would give them $100 if they found Connecticut, but if they did not, they would have to each give us $10 of their money; or, option 2) we would give them each $10 if they found Connecticut, but if they did not, they would not owe us anything. After wrapping their little minds around that proposal, they all took the safe bet of $10.

In Hawaii, it was largely as Deanna expected, with pretty much every plate being a Hawaiian one, with the exception of the occasional military or government plate. Then, halfway through the trip, while driving through downtown Honolulu, we saw, amazingly and within the space of 20 seconds, South Carolina, Texas, and, incredibly, Connecticut. There was much chaos and jubilant shouting in the car, as the boys had all, of course, conveniently forgotten that they had opted out of the $100 bet. Reminded, the mood turned ugly, with much arguing and shouts of "that's not fair!" Eventually, they all opted for taking the $10 rather than contacting their attorneys, although they later tried to double up when they saw, astoundingly, another Connecticut plate.

For any of you who think the boys got a raw deal, you should know that they had already been given some money to spend on the trip as a special treat. That money, along with their $10 from the Connecticut bet, was spent only in tiny dribs and drabs with agonizing deliberation over each $2 purchase. A typical transaction for the twins went as follows: they would spy some treasure in a shop - say a small glass jar filled with sand and shells with a cheap sticker on the outside that says "Aloha from Hawaii." A brow would furrow, as the potential purchaser considered the price tag and mulled over the dent this wonderful object would put in their accumulated fortune. The boy would almost always then place the object reluctantly back on the shelf, only to decide 20 minutes later, when we had all long since moved on to other stores or activities, that their little life will forever be empty and incomplete unless THEY OWNED THAT JAR RIGHT NOW. One of us would then make our way back with them, and the boy would then proudly tender the chosen item to an amused store clerk who would bag it up and give it and any change to the smiling and proud new owner.   

As all three boys seem to prefer knowing they have money to spend to actually spending it (not a bad trait to have), their money remained largely intact at the end of the trip. So, the $10 they each received in the Connecticut bet therefore lies unspent along with their other trip money in a running account at our house from which each boy dreams of spending his small boy fortune.