I call them "Eureka! Moments." 

Eureka! Moments happen after I have explained that vanity license plates are minimalist poetry in motion.

Eureka! Moments also happen after I have explained that vanity plates are message platforms that empower motorists to tell the shortest of stories -- in eight or fewer characters. 

Eureka! Moment is when the metaphorical cartoon lightbulb goes off above the head of someone I'm speaking with about the vanitizing phenomenon. 

An example of a Eureka! Moment.  A cable television news producer told me, after I appeared on her show, "I've never thought much about vanity plates before.  But after you spoke about the stories that people tell on their vanity plates, I will be watching out for them."

By sharing my passion for the stories that inspired motorists to vanitize, I am changing the way that people think about vanity plates.  That's because, while everyone knows what vanity plates are, hardly anyone ever thought much about them. 

At least until I decided to write LCNS2ROM – LICENSE TO ROAM: VANITY LICENSE PLATES AND THE STORIES THEY TELL. 

But I'm not the only one who is passionate about vanity plates. 

Some would-be vanitizers – motorists whose vanity plate applications are rejected or whose vanity plates are revoked after complaints about them – even sue DMVs to get or keep their vanity plates.

It turns out that vanity plates are, literally, about freedom of expression.  Courts have held that the First Amendment right to freedom of speech applies to vanity plates. 

DMVs screen all vanity plate applications, to reject vanitized messages that are scatological, or sexual, or derogatory; the First Amendment doesn't protect those types of vanitized messages. 

But every vanitized message could offend someone, even someone's actual name.  For example, the Rhode Island DMV recently refused to issue a vanity plate that says FUCHS, which is the motorist's actual name: the vanitized message, on a speeding vehicle, could easily be mistaken for a word not normally printed in family newspapers like this one.

So what I've learned since my last column is that vanity plates are about more than stories told in eight or fewer characters.  They're about freedom.  And they're fun. Hopefully, if you haven’t really noticed vanity license plates before, you will begin to now. I invite all of you to follow my progress, here in The Montauk Sun as well as on my website: www.LCNS2ROM.com. You may submit your own vanity plate for consideration there also!! Wouldn’t you like to be featured in a book?

I look forward to your joining me on my long and winding road to publication. I never realized how long that road would be, but I’m up for the journey and look forward to the destination. Keep an eye out for those vanity plates, but please, drive carefully and remember: EVRYBDY VNTZ! (Everybody Vanitize!)

NTL NXT MNTH (Until Next Time),
~Stefan