The good thing about sitting in traffic—perhaps the only good thing unless huffing exhaust fumes is your thing—is that it provides an opportunity to read bumper stickers on other cars. These stickers can tell us a lot about the people who are driving the car.Most prevalent these days are the My kid is an honor student type of sticker. As a father, I understand why parents want to put these on their car. Your kid’s smart, you’re proud of them, I get it. If it makes your kid smile to know that you’re telling the whole world—or at least the people behind you at the red light—about their accomplishments, then I’m all for it.However, there’s one thing you should know: the only people who care about your kid being on the honor roll are the people inside your car. The rest of us don’t know your kid, so while we’re happy that at least there’s not going to be one more idiot in the world, we don’t feel much pride for your particular kid.The other stickers I see quite often, which are growing in popularity and might actually overtake the honor roll sticker soon, are the stick figure family stickers. I guess they depict all the people in that family. A big sticker for dad, a smaller, but still big, sticker for mom, and then cute little boy or girl stickers for each of the kids. And, of course, if there are pets in the family they have their own sticker.I’m not quite sure the point of this. Lately those stickers have been getting fancy and relay the apparent interests of the family, like having all members dressed in Star Wars garb, or not even as people, but rather just beach sandals. At least that way they’re telling us something about themselves in addition to the fact that they exist.My ridicule of both the honor student and stick figure stickers extends only as far as this blog though. I don’t get so worked up that I have to put stickers of my own on the back of my car to counteract the stickers those people have.So you won’t see the sticker that shows a dinosaur eating a stick figure family on my car. And I’ve got news for the people with the cutesy My dog is smarter than your honor student sticker. No he’s not. True, my kid might not find a cure for cancer, but I’ve also never seen him spin around for ten minutes trying to catch his own butt.Some bumper stickers tell us more about a person than the person intended.For instance, if I see a sticker that says anything related to princess, and the car’s being driven by a grown woman, I automatically think the woman is probably an entitled pain in the ass.If I see a dude driving a car with some macho phrase, I automatically think he’s a pinhead who’s overcompensating for something.The absolute most ridiculous thing on the back of a car actually has nothing to do with bumper stickers though. Instead it’s those brass testicles that some guys hang from the tow hitch on their trucks. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, look here.Revolting.However, it does tell me everything I need to know about that person; mainly that my life will be much better if I stay away from them.Political stickers are interesting, too. I used to have a bumper sticker that said Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft: the real axis of evil. This was back in the days where some argued that questioning the president’s actions in any way was being unpatriotic. I’m sure my bumper sticker had a profound influence on what people thought, like, “That guy’s such a wimpy, liberal idiot!”It made me feel better though!We live in a golden age of political stickers since many politicians today establish their entire careers by endlessly repeating mantras short enough to fit on bumper stickers.My favorite bumper stickers though are the ones that show where people have traveled. For some reason I’ve always thought it was neat to know the person in front of me went to Grand Teton National Park, or the French Quarter, or New York City, or Ron Jon Surf Shop or whatever.No word on whether their honor student planned the trip for them.PREVIOUS POST: Some Things Cooler than Black FridayIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Why Maps are Better than GPS+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.
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