Bumper Sticker Shock

I’ve always enjoyed customizing my stuff. When I was a kid, I would trick out some of my Hot Wheels cars with paint or stickers. I wasn’t all that creative at that age, so mostly it looked pretty crummy, but still … this was not just some toy out of the box, this was my own – mine alone, no one else had one just like it.

As a grown-up I enjoy bumper stickers. I don’t want to be one of those kooky people with fifteen stickers on his car, a few well-placed and presumably clever ads, slogans, esoteric symbols, or obscure quotations will do!

Three and a half years ago, Carl (my younger brother in all but actual genetics) gave me a wonderful bumper sticker as a stocking stuffer: “What Would Cthulhu Do?” Cthulhu, the mad and nearly omnipotent monster god from the wicked and weird worlds of H.P. Lovecraft --- I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy. I put it on my car with pride. That bumper sticker helped me out of a jam one time. I ran out of fuel and a young pagan rescued me, “If that had said WWJD, I’m not sure I’d have stopped.” He said.

I can’t blame him. I’ve been “witnessed” to a few too many times myself.

But Cthulhu’s bumper sticker was looking a bit ratty. I finally removed it, or, more accurately, it just sort of … fell off. Anyway, it left my little white car looking a bit naked, I’m afraid. I have an E2 oval (like those country things GB for Great Britain, SWE for Sweden, that sort of thing…), my Homestar runner window decal, a triple A thing … A couple of bumper stickers would look nice!

Now, I have certain rules about what I will put on my car. Not just any old sticker will do for my little car Jidosha (Japanese for “automobile” I call him “Ji” for short). First, no politics…For one thing, my political beliefs are a death sentence in my hometown. My sister had her car vandalized for putting a Mondale/Ferraro sticker on it. If a relatively mild-mannered dweeb like Fritz Mondale can provoke that kind of response, I shudder to think what they might do to a car with a sticker that supports John Kerry or John Edwards or some other person whom Dallasites fear might usurp the White House.

Also, I would like my bumper sticker to be legible. I love bumper stickers. I love to read them, and I always feel sad if I can’t make out what they say because it is too small, too low-contrast, confusingly rendered, or too complicated. This always fills me with a sense of sadness.

Dear Driver:
I would have loved to read your witty quip, infuriating political statement, silly aphorism, or fun trademarked phrase, but I couldn’t make it out.

Signed,
Kellum

Also, as a former graphics professional, I really want something with at least a bare modicum of taste and design sense.

That brings us to CafePress. Once upon a time, in the bad old days, finding an appropriate bumper sticker, button, or t-shirt required hours of wading through badly-photocopied catalogues full of incredibly geeky fare (I heart James Doohan! I heart Airwolf! My Other Car is a Tardis!). Now, with the Intarwebs, you can type in a word or two and voila! You are transported to a world of wonders!

But what to search on? I really don’t have many hobbies that aren’t so esoteric that no one would have heard of them. What good is an Urban Dead bumper sticker? The Kingdom of Loathing ones are funny, but I just gave one to Suzi (“I stole your accordion!”), so that might be doubling up.

Perhaps I will try mythology. Ahhh … a wonderland! Apart from the “Follow Your Bliss” and the inexplicable “Global Warming is a myth” (people still think that, even after 99% of the scientists on the world have confirmed it? Oh right, there are still people who think the earth was created in seven 24-hour days …), there were many wonderful ones. I selected one that says “Eat. Sleep. Mythology.” … and then I found the MythBusters bumperstickers.

Have you seen this thing? The Discovery channel’s Mythbusters is hosted by two special effects experts tho take urban myths and subject them to some scrutiny: If you talk on the cell phone while pumping gas, will you set yourself on fire? If you are underwater, are you safe from bullets? If you throw a penny off the Empire State Building, will it have the power of a rifle bullet when it hits the pavement below? Are people with piercings human lightning rods? It’s been compared to if JPE and I had a show, although it is sometimes hard to tell which of us would match up with which host.

The Mythbusters team doesn’t “ just tell them myths, they put them to the test” – and very amusingly! They crash things, burn things, drop things out of airplanes … thir stalwart crash test dummy gets electrocuted, burned, dropped, and mutilated a lot of times – but no Mythbusters actually get harmed. Okay, that’s a total lie – host Adam Savage winds up, often through his own fault, getting hurt regularly. They blow up stuff – a LOT of stuff: a cement mixer, a Chinese throne, a pair of pants, a jet of flame, and even a Civil War vintage rocket powered by meat (you think I am kidding???)!!!

So anyway, Suzi and I have gotten into this show. They had bumper stickers, T-shirts, and buttons with every conceivable quatation from the program. They also had the obligatory “I (heart)…” and every member of the cast.

And I wound up ordering this one, a comment from host Adam Savage, who had just been confronted with video evidence that he’d said something he claimed he had not.

"I Reject Your Reality and Substitute my Own!"

Now I can customize my toys to my heart’s content.

(Suzi pointed out that a blog about bumper stickers is kind of a one-two punch of underratedforms of communication! I love them both!)