Bumper stickers,
to me, are a kind of precursor of Facebook. I don't partake in Facebook because
my miserably puny ego cannot begin to imagine there is one person out there in
cyberspace, let alone millions, remotely interested in what I did yesterday or what
I think of today, or what I think of anything. Similarly, I assume that the
people in the car behind me have little interest in who I voted, or plan to
vote, for. Neither do they care that I want to free Tibet or Texas, am ALREADY
AGAINST THE NEXT WAR or that my daughter is an honor student at Dingledum High.
It strikes me as a
very strange, and I think almost uniquely American, need; this urge we seem to
have to tell everyone around us such facts about ourselves. It's only, what,
three generations ago at the most, that no-one would dream of telling anyone
how they voted - even if someone asked, which of course no one would. Now we
apparently feel compelled to scream it to all those complete strangers who
chance to glance at our car. I'm no psychologist but surely it must be all
about ego? My candidate is better than yours. My causes are greater than yours.
I am right and so, if you think differently, you are wrong. I'm a better parent
than you, see, with my honor student daughter and my son who plays football for
the Dingledum Dummies. And I proudly display a Dingledum University sticker,
managing to imply even higher levels of success. I even have a better dog than
you, as I proclaim BULLDOGS ARE THE BEST BREED.
Sadly, these
things have now gone beyond simple proclamations. They are frequently
derogatory, angry, and confrontational. That poor Honor Student particularly
seems to attract attention, as in MY KID CAN BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT, or MY
SON IS FIGHTING FOR THE FREEDOM OF YOUR HONOR STUDENT. No longer content with
advertising how we vote, or don't, we now have to add a comment. VOTE DEMOCRAT.
IT'S EASIER THAN WORKING or VOTE REPUBLICAN FOR GOD, GUNS AND GUTS.
In our gun-crazy,
polarized, society, I am constantly surprised that those kind of bumper
stickers don't engender more violence, and also those commanding that you HONK
YOUR HORN IF YOU'VE FOUND JESUS, HONK IF YOU HATE OBAMA or HONK YOUR HORN IF
YOU SUPPORT GUN CONTROL, the latter a clear invitation to be shot, if you ask
me. Al Capone supposedly said that an armed society is a polite society but
that doesn't seem to hold for bumper stickers!
Some stickers, I
have to say, are creative and funny. There's little that cheers me up faster
when I'm stuck in a traffic jam, than a good laugh at the bumper sticker in
front of me. A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE is one of my
favorites, along with TV IS GOODER THAN BOOKS and INVEST IN YOUR COUNTRY - BUY
A CONGRESSMAN, and one most of us can relate to, INSIDE EVERY OLD PERSON
IS A YOUNG PERSON WONDERING WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED.
I confess I have
not always been totally immune to bumper sticker appeal. My car sported a U.S.
NAVY sticker when my oldest stepson signed up, to be joined by U.S. MARINES
SEMPER FI when my youngest went that direction. But that was simply to show my
support to my stepsons, not to anyone else. Which of course is probably, in
large part, the justification for all those honor student stickers. I only once
succumbed to the political cause sticker, and that was in 1992 when I felt
strongly enough about it to post VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 2 on my bumper.
As I waited at a
stop sign in Denver one day, another car pulled up close behind and a man with
a tire iron in his fist jumped out. He ran at my car, yelling queer abuse, and
brought the iron bar down just as the traffic cleared and I was able to gun the
car forward. The blow broke the rear side window and I sped into the nearby
King Soopers parking lot where I knew there would at least be a security guard.
But the crazy guy didn't follow, and that was the end of the incident.
And, call me
coward if you like, it was also the end of my brief involvement with bumper
stickers.
© 5 Jan 2015
About
the Author
I was born and raised in England. After
graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered
Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965,
working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got
divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have
now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 28 years.