Back in the 80s and 90s, the modern rock station in San Francisco went by “Live 105.” Around 1995, a stack of their bumper stickers showed up in my restaurant. I cut one of them apart and pasted the letters on another sticker, so that it read “viLe 105,” and slapped it on my car. (In case you haven’t figured it out, I was not a fan of modern rock - at the time, that is.)
A few months later I was getting out of my car and some dude walked up, saying he worked for Live 105. He handed me the latest REM CD and a couple of other things, because I had their sticker on my car. I said “even though I modified it?” He took a closer look, then shrugged and said “yeah, whatever,” and let me keep the stuff.
A few years ago in Louisville there was a music store called Ear-X-tacy, They had bumper stickers. People would the bumper sticker, cut it up and rearrange the letters to make up their personalized bumper sticker. A frequent one was “aX yer cat”. The game was to make it creative and fun.
Not a bumper sticker, but decades ago I drove behind a wag who had rearranged the letters across the tailgate of his small pickup truck to “SHITSUBIMI.”
Many years ago I had a “Visualize Whirled Peas” bumper sticker on my vehicle. Two others I saw in the wild and desperately wanted were “Have You Tormented the Devil Today?” and “Where Are We Going and What Are We Doing in this Hand Basket?”
Back in the '90’s I remember it was practically a fad for TOYOTA pickup truck owners to remove letters so all one saw on the tailgate was a giant YO. Then one day I was behind somebody who had a big NO on their tailgate. It took a bit for me to notice they owned a SONOMA. I hadn’t been aware that was a truck brand until then.
I actually looked into getting a Sonoma later when I was in the market for a pickup truck solely because I might also do that to mine, but rejected them for other more practical reasons, mostly price.
Neither amusing nor baffling in + of itself, but tangentially related to the topic as it amused me: an old car with five stickers on the bumper. Four were so weatherbeaten as not to be the least bit legible. The other was pretty weatherbeaten, but you could still read it: Kerry/Edwards, it said.
Sort of baffling to see today: recently on a light pole in my neighborhood someone stuck a mint condition vintage “Dope/Hemp '96” sticker. (instead of Dole/Kemp, get it?)
Seen on a car which had at least a dozen stickers and magnets supporting a range of liberal causes: a sticker featuring Paul Bunyan and Babe (his blue ox), with Bunyan using his axe to break up big ice cubes.
I had to think about that one for a minute. Bunyan is a popular symbol of Minnesota, and he was breaking ICE.
Another sticker on that car said: “Make Mr. Rogers Proud.”
Not a bumper sticker, but the booth next to me at the antique mall is a locked case that displays uranium glass under black lights, and on the side of that case is a sticker that says “LEGALIZE RECREATIONAL PLUTONIUM.”
I once worked with a woman who saw a t-shirt in her son’s size (preschool) that said AB/CD. She couldn’t resist, and bought it for him even though he couldn’t read it yet. I found out recently that this child got a 36 on his ACT.
There’s also a robotic character in the “Captain Underpants/Dog Man/Cat Kid” series called 80-HD. Say that out loud!
getting pegged (picture of a butt)