*note: this is not the actual bike.
Yamaha Exciter 250. When I was 17, I bought my first motorcycle. I didn’t have a proper license, only a learner’s permit. I didn’t have insurance. I didn’t have it safetied. I didn’t have a plate.
To get it home, I needed a plate. I went to a nearby parked bike, measured its plate and looked carefully at the plate, making some notes and headed back to my house.
I found a white shoebox, measured and cut the plate from it. I grabbed up a blue magic marker and proceeded to make the letter number combo EH591. I even made a registration sticker with the appropriate amount of digits on it. It was a work of art.
A friend was over and he cajoled me into taking it out with him on the back. I’d made a really good plate and why not? Well, within five minutes we come across a cop. I change my signal mid-turn and go the opposite direction. He doesn’t pursue. We come back the same way like the genius master criminals we were and he’s there. Waiting. We turn a corner, he flips the lights and pulls us over. We get off and as he walks up to the bike, he’s staring intently at the plate. He says, slightly surprised, “is this fake?” as he pulls it off the back, my unneeded “yeah” immediately following the rip.
Did you know faking a license plate is a huge fine compared to no plate? I didn’t. And no insurance. And having a passenger when I don’t have a license. I managed a hefty amount of fines and charges. I was super impressed (sarcasm) with how well I did.
As I sweated about my court date, I kept going to work and school. I’d told my mom about how idiotic I was and she was also super impressed (sarcasm) with me.
I worked at a Sunoco. It was self-serve so my entire job was pushing a button to let people pump their gas and making sure no one stole any air fresheners. One month after my “apprehension”, the same officer stops by the gas station. He comes in and says “can you come out here, please?” Ah shit. I’m getting arrested for some other thing he forgot. But his partner opens his door and gestures that I crouch down so he can talk to me sitting in the passenger side of the squad car. “You the kid that made that plate?” “Yeah that’s me.” “We pinned that up at the station. Amazing job.” “Um. Thank … you ?” “Yeah listen, a fake plate is a huge fine. We want to change it to no plate. That’s $78.75” “SERIOUSLY?!” “Yeah. You’ll still need to go to court about the insurance charge, but don’t worry about the plate.” He looks at his partner, who’d just finished writing the ticket and handed it across the car to me.
“Don’t do that again.” “No sir, I won’t.”
And that’s when I decided I wanted to go to art school.
