Off to the DMV to get the tabs for my license plate, because we all know we have to get the magic colored square to indicate we are legal. Just like you need tabs for your vacuum cleaner and wheelbarrow and washing machine, if it's one of those old ones that walks around the laundry room when unbalanced. Right? I mean, they move, too.
But no, we don't have tabs for those things. I don't have to put tabs on my dog's behind every year. But car tabs are necessary. Why, it pays for road upkeep! OK, but I pay gas taxes and income taxes, and it's not like I'm driving a Sherman tank with spikes in the tread. One day cars will not start if the tabs are expired, to keep menaces from the streets.
The minute your tabs expire you enter the realm of public paranoia. You might be pulled over and asked "do you know your tabs are expired?" There is no good answer. You could try this: Yes, I do, and scofflaw rebel that I am, I have decided to brazenly prowl the Mill City and flaunt my outsider status both fore and aft, bow and stern. Now if you'll excuse me, constable, I will go home and drink milk that expired yesterday. I live by no man's laws.
Or: Really, officer? Usually I perform a six-point walkaround inspection of my vehicle before leaving the house, but I left the clipboard in the kitchen and didn't check off the tab date this time. Then you hope he says "I'll let you off with a warning," and not add "and I'm warning you to pay this ticket or it turns into a warrant and then it's Stillwater where they can make knives out of carrots."
I expected a DMV crowd, since it was the end of the month, but everyone else who needed May tags had acted with foresight. I got my tabs promptly and proceeded to the next step, which is forgetting to put them on.
Yet somehow my car started today. Well, surely that's because they were in the glove compartment.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858
