Sure, I appear to be a normal, dependable, steady kind of guy, but in reality I like to look for those little quirks and flashes of hilarity that brighten a day and put a spring in one’s step. Many times I’ve found such material contained in bumper stickers.
Oh, there are tons of inane bumper stickers, of course. But there are a chosen few that have tickled me no end and caused me to smile. For instance, I saw one several years ago that made me laugh out loud, and I still remember it: “We don’t CARE how you did it up North.” Unexpected things like that just add spice to life.
But an incident on my way in to work this morning has soured me on bumper stickers. I will no longer look to them as a way to lighten my mood.
See, the problem is, bumper stickers always say the same thing. If you put a bumper sticker on your car that says “I got the crabs at Joe’s House of Seafood!”, a person will naturally assume you like to eat at Joe’s House of Seafood, since you’re advertising for them. If you subsequently get food poisoning at Joe’s House of Seafood so severe that you blow chunks of crab meat into orbit from the force of your anal convulsions, your bumper sticker still cheerfully implies to the world you thoroughly enjoy the experience of getting the crabs at Joe’s House of Seafood. An astronaut could see a crab chunk floating past his capsule, turn to his buddy, and say, “I wonder how that crab chunk got way up here. To my knowledge, crustaceans haven’t mastered space flight yet.” And his buddy would say, “I don’t know, but that reminds me – when we get back, let’s go eat at Joe’s House of Seafood. They must have great crabs there, because my neighbor put a bumper sticker on his car about them.”
So bumper stickers are not always to be trusted. I learned that, as I’ve said, to my chagrin this morning.
My standard route to work is the interstate; however, if it’s backed up by one of the accidents that are legally mandated to occur every morning just to piss me off, I take an alternate route. Two-lane, winding roads, through wooded hills. Fairly peaceful. Since I have to go to work anyway, it’s at least an idyllic, if longer, route.
I pull up to a stop sign, not too far from my office, right behind a minivan. In retrospect, I now realize the minivan had been stopped at the intersection for a longer-than-normal period of time. At the moment, though, I was lulled into a peaceful, mellow state by the serenity of my drive. And then I saw the bumper sticker.
Technically, “window sticker” would be a better description, for the owner of the van had eschewed the standard bumper placement for a higher-visibility location on the rear window of the van. The sticker read: “If you love Jesus, HONK.” The “honk” was centered on its own line, beneath the first part of the message.
Now, normally, I ignore these types of things. Not worth the effort to self-identify to another Christian. However, no one else was at the stop sign, and I was feeling peaceful and mellow and one with the world and generally happy, so I tapped my horn twice. This was not the single, long, loud blare that implies “Move your rustbucket before I drive right over it”; no, this was the cheerful, friendly, double-tap “toodle-oo”, which says “I see and agree with the message you have so prominently displayed on your vehicle, and am following the instructions thereon. Please do not shoot chunks of crab out of your anus at my car.”
The vehicle ahead of me lurches, briefly, as though I had somehow startled the minivan itself with my horn. Then, through the rear window, I can see the silhouette of the driver’s right arm as it leaves the steering wheel. I suppose I expect something like a “thumbs up” gesture of agreement with my honking. A digit is extended, yes; but it is not the thumb. Oh no. It is not the thumb at all.
I am flabbergasted. The van pulls out into the intersection. I am sure that if a minivan could burn rubber as it accelerated, this one would have done so.
As fate would have it, I pull up abreast of this van at a traffic signal a few minutes later. (The van is turning left; I am going straight.) Movement, seen out of the corner of my left eye, catches my attention, and I turn to look.
The passenger-side window of the van has been rolled down, and I am staring at a child who, judging by his actions, has obviously eaten several gallons of lead paint during those moments in his life when he’s not pursuing his favorite hobby of jamming his fingers into electrical sockets. He is flapping and gamboling around in his seat, and I stare at him a few seconds before I realize what he’s doing: He’s raising his right arm and waving the “stink” of his armpit at me with his left hand. His mother, who otherwise would appear to be a normal person, is raving at me, saying something about dropping her lipstick and trying to find it, and being late for school, and I should be more patient, and other spittle-flavored rantings.
Gone is the idyll of my morning. Gone is the peaceful commute to work. Gone is my patience with this idiot and her offspring.
I roll down my window, fill my lungs, and bellow "READ YOUR DAMN BUMPER STICKER, LADY!"
Realization dawns on her face, and it does my heart good to see the chagrin spread across her features. She grabs the arm of her spasmatic son and once again attempts to smoke her tires as she pulls away, but the best the underpowered minivan can to is grunt in its transmission as she turns through the intersection.
The bumper sticker is eternal. Your opinion or mood may change, but the message on the bumper sticker is eternal.
Think before you stick.