Bumper Crop of Oddities

This is a little something I wrote over a year ago, before I launched out into the blogosphere. I hope it's OK to recycle writings in a blog...

This is a little story about...well, it's maybe not so much a story as a humorous anecdote. It's about...OK, maybe it's not really an anecdote - more of a discussion of a topic that may be of some interest. Hmmmm...maybe "discussion" suggests a degree of organization that will be prominently absent here. Basically I hope you enjoy this rambling, mostly unsorted collection of thoughts about the things Americans display on the tail-ends of our cars.

I own exactly one bumper-sticker, and it is the only one I have ever owned. It says, "Sarcasm - just another service I offer," and it is not affixed to any portion of my vehicle. In fact, it currently resides in a box full of stuff I haven't unpacked from my last job-switch.

Let me also make it clear that my general impression of "Christian" bumper-stickers is that they exist merely to prove that Christians' cars go just as fast as anyone else's and that Christians possess no superior driving skills, no greater respect for traffic laws, and no better manners than their unchurched counterparts.

One morning as I drove to work I noticed one of those Ford SUVs - you know, the ones that are bigger than my first apartment. Attached to the vast tailgate was a single, understated, chrome outline of a simple fish, like an ichthus without the Greek letters inside. The license plate holder was made to resemble very thickly-stranded barbed-wire. And on either side of the rear window stood the nude silhouette of an impossibly-endowed woman. The one on the left sported horns and a pointed tail; the one on the right displayed a halo and wings. Some sort of statement about "good vs. evil," I guess. The truck was driven by a woman. I felt as though I had stumbled into some sort of meeting where everyone was bumper-sticking in tongues and there was no interpreter. It was as confusing as reading the Bible for the first time by grabbing up an old King James version and starting in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Some years ago, as a thirty-something college student, I was a member of a choir which made a statewide tour in the spring. Some of the places we visited were most memorable for all the things there weren't to do. Kingman was one of those towns. My roommate and I crossed the highway in front of our motel to visit an all-night truck stop in the hopes of finding something at least marginally more entertaining than the pitiful TV lineup. We browsed around the little convenience store and finally discovered something that was good for several minutes of banter and not a few belly-laughs - a display rack full of those ubiquitous chrome silhouettes of a nude, kneeling woman. The label on the package included this claim, "100's of decorative uses!" My friend, "Fig," and I are both reasonably creativeindividuals, but not even the combined power of both our imaginations got us anywhere near the first hundred uses, much less multiples thereof. We had a lot of fun trying, though.

There is a small pickup that I occasionally used to see on the way to or from my work. Its rear window is completely covered with a decal that says, "Crawling Squid Tattoos," accompanied, of course, by a wildly colorful depiction of the sea-creature in question.

I regularly see vehicles sporting stickers with print so small they may as well say, "If you can read this, I guess your airbag must have already deflated." Maybe that IS what they say - I have surely never gotten close enough to find out.

I suppose Phoenix isn't the only place with those "My kid was student of the week at..." or "My kid's an honor student at..." And so I presume the riposte sticker is as well-known, "My kid beat up your honor student." All good fun, ha, ha. Now I see stickers bragging about people's dogs completing obedience school. I hope that's a joke. If not, I'm sure there must be plenty of dogs who would happily wear the slogan, "My owner's an idiot."

Do you remember the great "I FOUND IT" campaign? I recall seeing those stickers on cars that made me think, "If I'd found that, I'd throw it back."

If ever I were to place a bumper-sticker on my vehicle, I think it would say "BUMPER," with an arrow pointing to the fixture indicated, although I have occasionally been tempted by those Yosemite Sam mud-flaps commanding other drivers to "BACK OFF!" Lately I've been thinking I should market a yellow, warning-sign-shaped sticker that says "BEWARE OF GOD."

I must admit that I found the "Boyfriend in trunk" sign pretty funny when it was accompanied by a necktie hanging from the sealed lip of the vehicle's closed trunk.

In the final analysis, if that's what this is, I confess that I truly appreciate some of the messages plastered on vehicles. How many school buses have been saved from rear-ending just because they display the warning, "This vehicle stops at railroad crossings"? And certainly no one would argue against those "flammable" and "explosive" warning symbols displayed prominently on gasoline tankers and medical equipment transport vehicles, and...oh, yeah, on the rear end of an old Ford Pinto I passed one day.