Selling Out

There are two fairly widely understood definitions for selling out.

In one instance, there might be a limited number of seats, or tickets, to an event, or a finite number of Harry Potter books at Borders. When all of them have been sold, the event, or the bookstore, is considered a sellout. That is a good thing.

The other isn't really as good. Wikipedia (And, really, if you haven't yet discovered Wikipedia, here's your chance. It's a pretty f'ing amazing online encyclopedia that seems to know EVERYTHING. I mean, just check out that table of contents for "selling out." I'm almost speechless.) defines selling out as follows:

"Broadly speaking, it refers to the compromising of one's integrity in exchange for money or other personal gain. It is commonly associated with attempts to increase mass appeal or acceptability to mainstream society. A person who does this is labelled a sellout."

So, to use the term in an example that demonstrates both of the definitions at the same time, I would offer the following statement:

The Rolling Stones are some of the biggest sellouts of the last ten years.

Now that we're all straight on the double entendre, let me get to my point. When I was 19, I got my first car. I lived in Mississippi, it had Mississippi plates. I spent four years in Texas, with Mississippi plates on my car. I lived in New York for over two years, and while my car didn't really run for most of that time, it sat in Ross's mom's driveway with Mississippi plates. I've been in LA for 3 months, and yesterday I put California plates on my car. It made me pretty sad, actually. On the one hand, I guess I'm in less danger of being pulled over now, but on the other, I feel like I've just done something against my will. Actually, the two hours I spent at the DMV yesterday in somewhat hostage-like conditions REALLY made me feel like I was doing something against my will. At one point I was expecting someone to hand me a copy of the LA Times to hold in the picture they were going to send to my parents.

Anyway, my car's got California plates, but I've still got my Mississippi driver's license, which means two things: I haven't completely sold out yet, and there's another miserable visit to the DMV sometime in the near future.