A giggle after taxes

Published on February 9 2006

One of the books off my Amazon wishlist arrived today, so I took a five from the horrors of Turbotax to thumb through it for a bit. The book is I'm a Stranger here myself by Bill Bryson. It's a series of essays written by a travel writer who lived in England for twenty years, but decided to return to the United States to live, and his observations of how his home country has changed since he left so many years before. I'm enjoying it immensely! One section deals with license plate slogans:

Still I can't criticize because I live in the state with the most demented of all license plate slogans, the strange and pugnacious "Live Free or Die". Perhaps I take these things too literally, but I really don't like driving around with an explicit written vow to expire if things don't go right. Frankly, I would prefer something a little more equivocal and less terminal--"Live Free or Pout" perhps, or maybe "Live Free or Bitch Mightily to Anyone Who'll Listen."

Now that sounds like a Wisconsinite at heart!!