If anyone ordered a black Utah vanity license plate with “SLM RPR” on it, I have your plate.
I’ve had it for a while now. Since last year actually, when the black license plates became widely available in Utah, after a bill passed in the state legislature to make them legal.
The bill said that revenue from the sale of the black plates would go to the Utah Historical Society, so as soon as they became available, my husband ordered one. Because we’re good people who love history. Just kidding, we just thought the black plates looked really cool.
What doesn’t look really cool, however, is a car with a humiliating vanity plate that was probably intended for someone else. At least that’s what we think happened. It’s really the only logical explanation for why the Utah State Tax Commission sent us a plate that read “SLM RPR.”
I don’t know why we didn’t immediately send it back. It was clearly an intentional assortment of letters, a choice made by someone, not us. But my husband and I both have “Well, I guess this is just how it is” personalities. So we attached the plates to the family vehicle and prayed no one would notice. Our prayers went unanswered.
As with most vanity plates, SLM RPR can be interpreted a number of different ways. Slam Rapper is one of those interpretations. Which is why people have asked my husband, a 37-year-old white man living in a suburb of Salt Lake City, if he’s a rapper. He, emphatically, is not.
But there’s an even more embarrassing read of SLM RPR, which is Slim Reaper — Kevin Durant’s nickname.
Kevin Durant, or KD, is one of the most prominent and capable players in the NBA. He is known for being both tall and thin. You know who else is tall and slim? My husband. So it’s within the realm of imagination that he might call himself Slim Reaper. He doesn’t, and he wouldn’t, but he could. The license plate suggests that he calls himself Slim Reaper and insists others do as well. Because why else would he have that license plate on his car? Which makes the plate that much more humiliating.
Not as humiliating, though, as the look of disappointment on other drivers’ faces when they excitedly glance through our car windows hoping to get a look at an NBA All-Star and instead find a family of five, none of whom look especially athletic.
Had the other drivers processed what they were seeing for just one second more, they might have understood just how unlikely it would be to see Kevin Durant, who plays for the Phoenix Suns, driving a used SUV with a damaged roof from the time I accidentally closed the garage door on it. But they never have that extra second to assess the condition of the vehicle or ask themselves why KD would be pulling out of the Ikea parking lot in Draper, Utah, because all they see is that outrageous license plate and assume, correctly, that someone would have to be out of their mind to co-opt that nickname.
A few people have tentatively asked for the meaning behind SLM RPR in what I assume is an attempt to evaluate just how delusional we are and try to evaluate whether or not they should have a relationship with us. Our explanation — that we’re pretty sure it was a mistake and someone is missing the vanity plate they ordered — has usually been met with boisterous laughter. Our nervous friends and family are relieved to learn we’re not as delusional as our car makes us look. And we were relieved to have a chance to explain.
But we couldn’t explain our predicament to every one who passed us on the freeway, and I couldn’t stand the thought of so many other drivers laughing at us, so I finally declared enough was enough.
After a year of humiliation, we requested new plates. And our long nightmare came to an end last week when the new plates arrived, much sooner than we were expecting. We had been told there was a long line of people waiting for the black plates and it could take months. Maybe the Utah State Tax Commission took pity on us. We certainly deserved it.
So if you requested a black Utah vanity plate that reads SLM RPR, it’s at our house, buried under a stack of mail in the office. Feel free to come get it. But I’m not sure you want it.