This is a cool story and a blast from my past!
Remember back in 1982, (for those of you 'older folk' born before then) Tommy Tutone's song 867-5309 Jenny
The following story is about a woman who wanted to make it her Vanity license plate.
Daily Herald
867 5309 - Jenny gets her number
By Eric Peterson Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted 8/12/2004
It all started with a phone number.
A seemingly random combination of digits that served as the inspiration for an early '80s pop song and a recent TV commercial is now the license plate number for Schaumburg resident Jennifer Fletcher's Jeep Cherokee.
But the endless efforts of mathematicians to calculate the final digits of the geometric formula Pi almost pale in comparison to Fletcher's persistent pursuit of her preferred permutation.
"867-5309/Jenny" was Tommy Tutone's catchy 1982 hit about the possibility of true love found in a girl's phone number written on a wall.
Although Fletcher shares the name of the song's celebrated heroine, the thought of making the number her license plate didn't occur to her until last year.
Idling in traffic, she noticed that the new random Illinois license plate numbers featured all numerals. As the numbers started getting higher in sequence, the thought of getting that number got too good to pass up.
"I've been inquiring to the secretary of state's office for over a year with phone numbers, e-mails, everything," Fletcher said.
The excuse most people used to get rid of her was that the numbers are only released in sequence, and the sequence hadn't reached the number she wanted. Furthermore, all-digit combinations aren't recognized as vanity plates and can't be specially requested.
Still, no one ever told her it was impossible, and that kept her going.
Finally she was sent to the voicemail of the woman who would ultimately help her. When they first spoke, the woman couldn't understand what the attraction of the number was. Then Fletcher told her to read it again as if it were a phone number.
"She said, 'Oh my God, it's the "Jenny, I've got your number" song, and you're Jenny!'?
Though the woman seemed sympathetic to Fletcher's cause, she said the department would still be unable to break the sequence of the numbers.
But she kept track of where the new numbers were in the sequence and stepped up her efforts as they got closer.
In a last ditch effort, Fletcher asked that she at least be given info about whomever the plates were issued to in order to negotiate a swap. But even that was unlikely, she was told.
But then, in late July, she got the phone call she'd nearly stopped hoping for, from the woman at the secretary of state's office.
"When she called, she shouted, 'Jenny, I've got your number!'? Fletcher laughed.
Only because the number was part of the next batch and only because Fletcher had expressed so much interest in 867 5309 did she get her wish. It was really a combination of both factors, rather than the state changing its policy on requests, she said.
In other words, it's still next to impossible to request the license plate you want unless you shell out the money for a vanity plate.
"Vanity plates and personal plates are defined by statute," said Randy Nehrt, spokesman for the secretary of state's office.
Anything outside of that definition is a standard plate. Plates are produced and stored in bulk as an economical measure for the state and its taxpayers. To start breaking up these pre-produced sets before their regular release would be a costly effort that isn't permitted, Nehrt said.
"That's definitely a coincidence that that worked out that way for that individual," he said of Fletcher's story.
During the week that Fletcher's plates were waiting on a desk at the secretary of state's office, nearly everyone who walked by started singing the song, she was told.
Now that the plates are on her vehicle, Fletcher said her two teenage sons see the whole thing as embarrassingly retro. For her older 17-year-old son, Dan, borrowing the Jeep Cherokee has definitely lost its appeal in the last week, she said without a trace of regret.
"But everyone who grew up then and remembers the music from the '80s has said, 'That's cool!'?
Posted by TB at August 14, 2004 10:46 AM