KNDOFBLU

I was heading East on 580 today when I saw it. I was probably playing taxi, going to get my kids from school or maybe taking them to one of their practices. I had just made the curve around the Lake and was passing the Park Boulevard exit.

KNDOFBLU

No, it's not a long acronym for something. It was the license plate on the car that was in front of me. "How cool is that?!" I thought. I wished I had thought of that. Oh..what? You don't get it? Kind of Blue. Yeah...THAT Kind of Blue. Yes, my mind is always on the Miles Davis channel. "Wouldn't it be even more perfect if KCSM 91.1 were playing some Miles right now," I mused. But they weren't. It didn't matter. I was lost in the moment.

Who's car was it? This must be one cool cat. In my mind I started to create a picture of the owner of the vehicle upon which these plates sat. He was probably some late 40s to mid 50s cat with a thick beard, wearing a muslim kufi cap. He was Yusef Lateef. No...wait. He's driving a BMW. It's not just any BMW but a Dinan 5 series wagon. Okay...scratch the kufi. It's gotta be a beret now. Keep the bald head, but now he's Delroy Lindo. His air freshener probably smelled like incense and surely he was also listening to 91.1 like I was.

Traffic was pretty thick so I couldn't get up next to the car to confirm my suppositions. I was still stuck on how cool this was. How cool this cat must've been. I started thinking like a 7-year old. This cat oughta be my friend. If you had a cool bike or a really cool collection of Legos or if you TOO could sing along to the Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight or maybe if you played basketball, you had a good shot at being my friend. I was using the same logic here. This Kind of Blue license plate and the BMW and the imagined beret and incense were the equivalent of the Star Wars Lego set with the X-wings and the entire Death Star. Simply Cool!

I felt so inadequate. My Murano didn't seem as cool as his Dinan BMW, and my state issued license plate with the random alphanumeric characters had exactly NO character. It was like I just had the run-of-the-mill Lego set that could only make square houses and stuff like that.

Who likes Miles Davis more than me? Shouldn't I have some expression of my Miles-ness somewhere? Maybe I should turn up my radio. I should switch to disc 4 in the changer and "pump" Miles version of Autumn Leaves so that everybody can hear it. I should have these plates. Pump your breaks chief. Last I checked, envy was indeed one of the seven deadlies.

Traffic finally broke and I was able to switch lanes and almost get up to wear I could sneak a peek at the "new" coolest cat on the freeway (my title had been relinquished instantly upon sight of the plates). The brake lights were making me nervous though. Each time I'd almost get to wear I could see the driver, the car in front of me would slow down and I'd lose ground again. The suspense was killing me. Then, just like that it was over. The car in front of me moved, I hit the gas just enough to gain ground on Mr. KNDOFBLU, glanced to my left and saw...a frazzled, nervous, middle-aged white woman, gripping the steering wheel like it were her only salvation from falling off the side of a cliff in a tornado. Oh well. At least I'm still the coolest cat on the freeway during rush hour.