But, I moved to California and was going to be stuck with blue and red on white default plates again. So, before we left I looked at the plate options for California and decided that the Coastal plates (a.k.a. "Whale Tail") where my favorite. Of course when we went to AAA within the requisite 10 days of arriving, we had to get sequential default plates. At that time, robot_grrl ordered up custom plates of the "Kid Friendly" verity. However, anything I could think of to put on them was taken. So I resigned myself to having to wait until I could order whale tail plates with my number.
Then, a few weeks later, I went online and requested plates that incorporated my car model with my nickname, and was able to get them! But since I ordered them online, they had to be shipped to a DMV office, and I chose the one near where we were staying in temporary housing.
A couple of weeks ago, Tara got word that her plates were at the AAA office where we had initially got our plates. We drove down there on the way to December Nights and got them.
On Tuesday I got a letter from the DMV informing me that my plates were available. So I called the DMV -- and had to call the toll-free number which was probably routed to Sacramento or wherever the central switchboard for the DMV is located. The operator (once I managed to force my way to an operator) didn't sound sure about having custom plates sent to a AAA office from a DMV, but took the information. Yesterday, I got a call from the Oceanside AAA office, my plates were in.
Now my car proudly sports a set of Whale Tail license plates: