Is there a way I could create a variable that belongs to a table much like a static variable belongs to a class? So it "thing=1, person=2" were variables belonging to the table structure (not each row), then I could do something like this:

SELECT *
FROM table
WHERE type = table.thing OR type = table.person

I haven't touched sql in months, and I have a feeling this is something very simple.

I think I understand the functionality you are looking for. If not, I apologize now.
I've never seen anything like you described. This functionality is usually accomplished using what are commonly referred to as "Lookup Tables". A Lookup Table is usually a relatively small table with usually just 2 columns: an ID and a Name string. For example:

This table may contain data such as:
Then your "car" table may look like this:
See? Your car table uses the manufacturer_id instead of spelling out the manufacturer for every row. This is because, eventually your car table may have hundreds of thousands of rows, so why waste space inserting the manufacturer names in every row when there are only a handful of manufacturers.

So when you query, you do something like this:

This help?

I understand what you said, its how I ended up doing it anyway. I'm just used to thinking more along the lines of OOP (classes). Stupid Java!