"WHAT did you just DO?!"

 "A soft answer turneth away wrath:  but grievous words stir up anger."  (Proverbs 15:1)

It happened in a suburban supermarket parking lot.  I heard a loud, angry, confrontational female voice.  Quickly glancing behind me, I saw a blonde, middle-aged woman storming toward me.

"WHAT did you just DO?!" she was asking me.

The genesis of what led up to that moment happened a few months earlier.  Many of you know that I'm an Assemblies of God minister - although I haven't actually pastored a church in fourteen years.  I don't have many hobbies.  Many ministers play golf.  In fact, many are serious golfers.  But, alas, I only play "Putt-Putt"!  Some are runners.  Some are pretty good photographers.  Some play musical instruments.  More than a few are avid gardeners.  And occasionally you'll find a minister who is gifted at woodworking.  But as I stated, I don't have many hobbies.  I did play the clarinet as a child and as a teenager.  I still have the instrument.  I haven't even tried to play it in maybe twenty years.  My sister is "bugging" me about having my clarinet professionally reconditioned (it really needs it) and playing again.  At times I seriously think I just might.  

One thing I notice is license plates.  And here in Massachusetts, auto inspection stickers, too.  And believe me, there are loads of cars with expired inspection stickers driving around the state of Massachusetts!  I'd been thinking for months about doing a daily feature on Facebook called "License Plate of the Day".  Nothing fancy.  Just taking a picture of an interesting license plate, posting it and dating the post, and wondering if it would get any reactions or comments.  That could be sort of a little, easy hobby.  

On May 3 of this year as I sat in my car in a supermarket parking lot in Brockton, I noticed a very interesting personalized license plate:  "BLAST 1".  Is that cool or what??  I got a little "gutsy".  I exited my car.  I snapped a photo of the plate, and that morning I posted it on Facebook.  That was the beginning and now there's been a "License Plate of the Day" posted by me every day for over six months!

Back to the angry, confrontational, (and slightly scary) blonde woman.  This happened maybe in July.  I'd just snapped a picture of a license plate.  It wasn't anywhere near as cool as "BLAST 1".  I don't even remember what it was.  I think there might have been a couple Xs in it, like maybe "XOX 25" - something like that.  I was walking away from the small SUV when I heard the yelling.  

She caught up to me.  She looked at me as though I were a criminal, a pervert, a horrible and sinister person, or all of those together!  I calmly smiled and told her I do a little feature on Facebook called License Plate of the Day and that I thought it would be a good plate to post there. 

"No.  NO!"  she snapped.  "I don't want anybody to see my plate!"

Maybe this was the wrong thing to say but I sort of chuckled and pointed out, "Well, actually MANY people DO see your plate every day!"

She didn't like that.  I told her my father was Eugene A. Baril who retired from the Registry of Motor Vehicles in 1982 and that because of him, on my car I have Massachusetts license plate 280.  She did calm down and lightened up a bit at that point.  She told me she was a former RMV employee and that's where she'd gotten her plate.  But she just didn't want me to use that photo.  I showed her the photo on my phone and I showed her I was deleting it.  She walked away, in a better frame of mind.

No kidding, about two weeks later, I repeated the scene; this time in a shopping center parking lot.  There was a white Cadillac SUV with kind of an interesting plate.  It wasn't even as good as the first woman's.  It was maybe something like "775 J".  I snapped the photo and was walking toward my car.

"Hey, WHAT do you think you're doing?!"

This was also a woman; also middle-aged.  This one was probably ten years older than the first.  She gave off both an affluent and arrogant impression.  I tried my explanation again.  This woman never worked for the RMV.  She also made me feel, you know, like a pervert, and a criminal, and a slippery and undesirable guy.  As in the first case, I showed her I was deleting the photo.

Since then, I'm still looking for interesting and/or significant license plates, but I must admit I look around a lot more and I'm much more careful to make sure nobody is watching me!

So what do you think?  Good hobby, or kind of silly and stupid hobby?  Or both?

Another hobby of mine is amateur writer.  Well, that's why I started this (most eclectic) blog back in 2006!  Don't get me wrong, I love preaching and I loved pastoring.  But I've had two dreams for years:  Newspaper columnist, and radio talk show host.  I guess now some of you are laughing like you're Kamala Harris!  You can stop.  But I don't think there's anything wrong with a person pursuing their interests!

Did you like this story?  You have no idea how much I enjoy feedback.  Even negative feedback.  One of the nicest things you can do for me is leave a comment right here on the blog or leave a comment on the Facebook link (if that's how you found out about this article).  And even better.  Share the link on  Facebook or Share the link somewhere else.  You have no idea how happy that will make me!

And finally if you have a really cool license plate, contact me!  I'll come and take a photo of it, and at least you won't start screaming at me!