It’s funny what banality can trigger memories.
Sometime in the coming weeks, I will undertake a ritual for the very last time. A ritual that has always connected me to my father. A ritual that was ours when my father was alive.
When I was little, I used to be dad’s 2IC when it came to replacing the annual registration sticker on the family car. This used to involve razor blades, hours of concentration, methylated spirits and cut fingers. Back in the day, the Government used to issue each vehicle with a registration sticker which showed the month of registration, the year of validity and the registration number, make and VIN details of the vehicle. It was up to each owner to apply the sticker to the windshield of the car after removing the pervious year’s version as it was an offence to leave the old sticker visible. So dad and I would set off to laboriously scrape off the old sticker which was made of a thin plastic film and applied to the window with a coat of glue. It was a transparency sort of affair which we could only remove using methylated spirits and razor blades. And the reward for persisting? A formerly whole registration sticker now hacked to a million plastic bits all through the car.
Whatever was involved, I loved this father/daughter time. It was him and me against the world.
As I grew, Dad anointed me in charge of the great registration sticker exchange. Out would come the razor blades and the metho (Aussie vernacular
for methylated spirits) and out I’d go to the car and do the deed. By this time, adhesive technology had evolved to the point where the registration sticker was less transparency, more sticker in the traditional sense. No water was required to activate the adhesive. This made old sticker removal somewhat quicker and easier, although the razor blades still came in handy.
Every year I change my registration sticker I use the same tools, the same methodology and I think of my father.
Our Government has finally decided to come into the twenty-first century and will from this year rely on its computer records as proof of registration. There will be no more registration stickers to apply and only this last one to remove.
My kids will never experience this ritual.
I will miss it. As I miss him.
In the coming weeks, my final peel will be for you, dad.
Raising the Curtain 
This just proves how mundane life tasks can be so precious. For me, it’s wiping down counter tops each time I step into the kitchen–just like Mom.
You’re right. We seem to put a lot of emphasis on having big moments, when really most joy comes out of the every day moment.
The rituals that keep us connected. The special moments recalled. Precious.
I think I have something in my eye.
And there you are, touching a whole new generation in your family and contributing to their remembered moments. There must be something going around, my eyes feel a little heavy as well 😉
😉
Hate those stickers! A mess and a hassle. I like the computer registration idea in a way, but I guess it is another part of a more sinister issue of government control of the masses. Okay-me and my conspiratorial thinking.
Lee
Wrote By Rote
Well, I’m not sure to what extent the police/Government were relying on those stickers anyway. It used to be the case you had to take them and have them imprinted with a receipt number before you applied them to your window. Then that stopped when payment online became an option and you had to record the receipt number that was issued manually on the registration papers, not the sticker. This seems like the next logical step.
A great example that parents don’t have to do anything fancy or expensive to spend time with their children. Even simple things will create memories forever. It’s the time together that counts, not the activity. On the other hand, it was about time they got rid of those pesky stickers!
Yes indeed, parents and their offspring can bond over anything really and the whole issue if about being present. Do you have the stickers over there? My impression was that registration is done through the annual issue of number plates, at least in LA. Having said that, my impression is through TV shows and movied and is probably completely wrong.
No stickers other than the little stickers we put on top of the license plate itself. Nothing on the car, thank goodness.
Ah OK, thanks for clarifying.
what a lovely memory and write Jude. I can see how you miss him and I am sure he is watching you as you do your last peel with a very big grin on his face. {hugs}
Thanks Jen. I hope he found this post apeeling :).