Would you believe, a third zippo month in a row? I think this is a record.

Around mid-month I came home to a call on my answering machine: a friend had spotted New Mexico in Edgartown! She gave the location, street and nearest cross street. I knew exactly where it was — but more than two hours had passed, and I had work to do. Should I drive nine miles (give/take) to Edgartown on the off chance that New Mexico was still there?

O me of little faith: I stayed home. New Mexico remains blank white on my license plate map.

For a brief moment, I considered getting a cell phone, so that in future such intelligence could be followed up on immediately. Would I be the first person in the history of cell-crazed humanity to get a cell phone to enhance her license-plate-spotting capabilities? Possibly, and the prospect was tempting, but I decided against it.

You know, don’t you, that if North Dakota had been spotted on the streets of Edgartown, or even somewhere near the Gay Head light, I would have been there, even if four hours had passed since the sighting?

This friend wasn’t the only one to take note of my license plate lunacy. This was posted to my Facebook timeline by another friend, Kim Hilliard, maven moderator of the MV Stuff 4 Sale group on Facebook:

Be still, my beating heart! All 50 state plates, together, on one wall! A vision of solidarity and harmony and all that good stuff.

The year is waning. Prime plate-spotting season has definitely passed. But hope springs eternal, till the clock hits midnight on December 31 and a new year begins.