“Pee before we go!” is every parent’s mantra.
And before leaving the house (or the store, or the restaurant, or any other location), Wendy Auger, a mother of four from New Hampshire, is all too familiar with advising her children to use the bathroom.
Since then, she put it on a license plate. Auger has had the plate for 15 years and said that before now, she’s gotten nothing but positive reactions.
“That’s what I tell my kids when we’re about to leave to go anywhere,” Wendy said.
However, she learned at the beginning of August that the vanity plate was being recalled because it made reference to “sexual or excretory acts or functions,” she received a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
“I was completely shocked,” Wendy said. “I was on my way out the door to go to work, and at every stoplight and stop sign I kept taking (the notice) out and looking at it again. I just couldn’t believe what I was reading.”
She said that “(People) think it’s funny.”
“I get thumbs-ups, honks on the highway, people yelling ‘Awesome plate!’ in drive-through lines. It brings a chuckle and a smile to the people who can figure it out,” the mother of four added.
However, someone at the DMV was not amused. Fox News reported that the letter they sent instead cited a ban on plates relating to “sexual or excretory acts or functions” and informed her that the plate was being recalled and she had 10 days to return it.
Wendy was given the choice to have a vanity plate at no additional cost or to choose one that would be awarded to her in the recall letter. The letter stated that a portion of her vanity plate money would be returned to her if she decided to purchase a standard plate, but Wendy didn’t feel comfortable with that.
Wendy admitted — pun intended, “I was pissed! I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.”
Wendy immediately appealed the recall.
“I’m not a political activist, but, this is a non-offensive thing that I’ve had, and it’s part of who we are as a family and who I am, and there was zero reason for them to take it away,” Wendy said.
She rhetorically asked, “Who has a mom or dad or parental figure who hasn’t said that to kids before leaving the house?” But fortunately, she wasn’t the only one who disagreed with the state’s choice.
After a few days of fighting to keep her license plate, Governor Chris Sununu heard about the situation from a mutual friend at a local grocery store. It didn’t take long for the governor to intervene.
“Upon this being brought to my attention, I reached out to the Division of Motor Vehicles and strongly urged them to allow Wendy to keep the license plate she has had for the last 15 years,” Sununu said in a statement. “I recently left a message on her phone to share the good news that her plate will not be recalled.”
Adding that she was “stoked” to be able to keep her plate, “Yes, it was a relief,” she said — again with pun intended, as reported by TIME.
“I’m glad, now that there’s been a resolution,” Wendy said, “It makes me happy, but I was still shocked. It was a couple weeks of going ‘What the heck?’. It’s just crazy. I mean, I could see if it was offensive in some manner, but clearly in 15 years I haven’t offended anybody with the plate.”
Even though her children were becoming older and no longer required the reminder, Wendy stated that she still planned to keep the plate. She said, explaining that she’d considered changing the plate before getting a new car a few years ago, “They love it! The kids wanted to keep it.”
Watch the video below for more details:
Sources: TapHaps, TIME, Fox News, Inside Edition