Every license plate I saw this morning contained a Z. All right, I looked at six and five contained a Z.

You see, I sometimes play a game as I commute to and from work. I make words out of the letters in license plates—only official state license plates count, none of the vanity ones. They also has to be random plates from the road or from cars parked alongside it. The game allows one to scramble the letters in any way that will make a word, with Q and X as optional skips. You can make a word out of them if you wish to try, but no demerits for skipping them, and two points instead of one for using them. Of course, since I’m in the car by myself there really isn’t anyone to keep score or to play against, except some hypothetical opponent who might or might not be me.

I was quite smug yesterday evening when I saw a plate with GQE. It felt like there was a word there but I couldn’t quite suss it out. After I meditated on it for a while, “QUAGMIRE” popped into my brain. That’s when the smugness hit. My hypothetical opponent even gave me kudos.

But Z’s everywhere I looked this morning. I didn’t come up with any good solutions. I couldn’t be arsed to try. I kept thinking that I wouldn’t be moving down these roads, ones I’ve traveled for decades, for much longer. I won’t miss the commute. It’s often brutal these days. But I will miss some of the sights and sounds.

Will I miss the license plate game? There will be other roads and other license plates, although I admit to sometimes playing the game obsessively until I have to force myself to stop or risk my sanity.

Maybe I’ll concentrate on new sights and sounds instead.