Bumper Stickers: Your Car's Tattoo
Now, I’ve never been a fan of tattoos. Every part of your true love’s body is so beautiful that there is no need to try and improve even a square inch of it. But despite my romantic objections, people get tattoos anyhow. Why? Well, here’s why. When people get a tattoo they are telling you one of three things: “I believe in something so much that I had it permanently inked onto my body”, “I hate my body and want to improve it without really doing any work”, or “hey look, I drew on myself”. People put bumper stickers on their cars for pretty much the same three reasons. Nothing spruces up an old Buick like a four inch by two inch purple sticker that says “Mom’s Taxi”. And hey, if you like the Patriots, shouldn’t everyone on the highway know about it? Putting on a bumper sticker is a nearly permanent choice, since it’s going to be more of a pain in the ass to take off that any of us really have time for. Besides, if you were to take it off after any time longer than 6 months, you’re going to still see the outline which would look worse than the sticker, so why bother. The average person these days keeps their car for about four years which is far less time than it takes a decent quality plastic sticker to degrade, so if they put a sticker on the bumper, you can bet it’s going to stay there for as long as they’re driving it.
Many people who choose to put bumper stickers on their cars are what we would call true believers. True believers have a message of critical importance that they need to get out to the world, like “No on 16” (well, ok, I guess that’s a valid argument), or “It’s Not a Choice It’s a Child” (actually it is a choice and a child, but thanks anyhow for sharing your opinions on proper uterus management), or Yankees Suck (in fairness to these people, Yankees actually do suck). The only bumper sticker that ever persuaded me to do something was one that said “Horn Broken, Watch for Finger”.
Some of the best bumper stickers I’ve seen are the home made ones. I once saw a 1991 Buick Skylark with those metal stick-on black and gold letters you get at the hardware store that spelled out “God Bless America”. I don’t disagree, I love both God and America, but the issue here is this: was he really having trouble finding a bumper sticker that said “God Bless America”? There must be a thousand varieties of stickers which carry that slogan. You can get them with a picture of the flag on them, or a picture of an eagle, or a picture of the country (I’ve never seen one with a picture of God, but I have faith that it exists). You can get them in all different colors and sizes, at a variety of price points, so why did this guy need to make his own? I’ve come to believe that he probably worked at the hardware store. You see a lot of home made bumper stickers around election time too. They hardly classify as bumper stickers though, they are usually more of a sign someone has taped to the inside of their window. Now how much do you really believe in something if it’s just taped to the inside of your window? I’m not doing anything you say unless you can show me that you don’t mind getting your car’s exterior a little sticky. The up shot here is that these people tend to remove their “bumper stickers” after the election. Few things bother me more than seeing a “Gore/Lieberman” sticker on a car in 2007. Come on, that was two elections ago, are you still holding on, or are you just lazy? Either way, I refuse to go back in time and vote for those two guys no matter how long it stays on your car.
Man I hate those oval stickers. You know, the circular white with black outline stickers that have letters in them? For those who are a bit lax on their bumper sticker modern history let me get you up to speed. According to ovalstickers.net the stickers originated in Europe back in 1969. The United Nations decided it was a good way for a foreign car to display their country of origin when traveling internationally, since so many European license plates looked alike. They have long since outlived their original purpose, but people still put them on to show pride for their homeland. Fine, you’re from Sweden, good for you. Then in 1995, some jerk (this part is no longer “according to ovalstickers.net”) decided it would be neat if they took the design, but put a local flavor in it, like an airport code, BOS for Boston, or ACK for Nantucket for instance. Then, shortly thereafter, an even bigger jerk took that idea and decided they could put whatever the hell they wanted in the oval, like “SKI”, or “HILLARY”. Now it seems like its ok to put an entire sentence in there! I’m even starting to see pictures in those little ovals. I have an oval sticker on my car for all the other people out there who have a clever oval sticker. It reads “FU”.
Some people use the bumper sticker as a not so clandestine message to cops. Like “Support Maine Troopers”, for example. I assume you get one of these stickers if you donate money, time, or whatnot to the police, and the implication is that if you get pulled over you should be given a warning because the cop will know you have donated something to their well being. I’ve met some pretty dumb cops, but I can’t imagine any of them taking that seriously. Is it really that easy? Put a sticker on your car and it’s OK to break the law? It seems to me that if they really supported the police, they’d stop breaking the law. Then of course there is another kind of not so subtle message you can send to cops. This is a sticker that has some drug or alcohol reference in it like “Bake me when it’s 4:20”, or “This Car Powered by Red Hook Brewery”. Why not cut the balderdash and just put on a sticker that says “I Might be an Easy OUI”? My message to both these people who so badly want to communicate with the men in blue is this, “you have the right to remain silent”.
There is actually only one good bumper sticker in the entire country, and that is the WAAF “W.O.W” bumper sticker. They don’t make this one anymore, and if you call WAAF they will deny it ever happened (this is really true), but W.O.W stands for “Whip ‘em Out Wednesdays”. The idea here was that if you had this bumper sticker on your car, and it was Wednesday, girls would pass you and lift their shirts up. It worked really well. In fact it worked so well that the local police decided that it was a safety hazard and needed to be stopped. Sadly WAAF bowed to the still largely puritanical staff of the Boston Police Department and put an end to what could have been our new utopia. Some people still have them though, and every now and again, people will call in to WAAF with stories of a W.O.W. sighting only to get a cold “we don’t know what you’re talking about”. Now to go back to the tattoo analogy, if you could get a tattoo that would cause women to lift their shirts up when they saw it, wouldn’t you get it? I would. But those day’s are over and now no one is lifting their shirt up for “Love Animals, Don’t Eat Them”. Thanks a lot BPD.
So now you know everything about bumper stickers. If you insist on voicing something please remember: just like a tattoo, one carefully placed bumper sticker is probably OK, when you start running out of space on the bumper and have to move up to the back of the trunk, it’s probably time to take your car to the gym. Despite what in the paragraph about oval stickers, I actually don’t have any stickers on my car, but If I had a Porsche, I’d get a sticker that said “My Other Car is a Porsche Too”, man would that be clever.
