Coexist…by scraping off the stickers

I used to love bumper stickers, and although I never would dare put one on my vehicle (I can hear my dad screaming in my ear, “You just knocked $1000 off of the value of your car!) I always enjoyed finding a good, clever bumper sticker to agree with while sitting at a red light. I felt that the person in that car was a friend, even if I never saw them again or would never speak to them in my life.  We had similar opinions, and that, in my book, was good enough. Living in a bigger city like Cleveland, and especially in my little liberal corner of it, it was not difficult to find liberal, tolerant or witty bumper stickers that made me smile.  In fact, when we were deciding about whether or not to move to Wyoming, I said to my husband, “If you find 5 liberalish bumper stickers, we can move there.  That is your mission.”

To my dismay, bumper stickers are scarce here, so my husband didn’t find 5 left-leaning bumper stickers. In fact, he didn’t even see a total of 5 when he came for his 3-day visit.  We decided to risk it, and moved here anyway.  Now that we live in this mostly republican, totally Christian town, and especially since they are so scarce, bumper stickers jump out at me like never before.  However, every one I see seems to tell me that I don’t belong here. As a result, I’ve gone from loving  bumper stickers to hating them, even the liberal ones.

I realize now that bumper stickers are a passive agressive way of telling the world that if they don’t agree with you, you are an idiot, a communist, a bitch or a baby murderer.  You are going to hell, you are the reason the world is going to hell in a hand-basket and your smart kid is a wimp.  Most of them are really quite awful, if you think about the person that has a differing opinion at the other end. I realize that there are a few bumper sticker sayings that are truly positive. But for the most part, what a bumper sticker says is this. “If you don’t agree with me, change your opinion or fuck off.” It’s really not a positive message.  And in today’s world of hatred, intollerence, and non compromise, I really just want to see some positivity out there.

I thought about making a  bumper sticker that says, “Please don’t assume that I agree with you,”  when I first moved here.  However, now I think that saying nothing on my car is better than making someone behind me at a red light feel offended or worse, judging me before ever meeting me based on an opinion that I have about gay marriage (For it!) I am all for a lively discussion of differing opinions, and I also respect anyone’s decision to be Pro Life, Pro Choice, Christian, Jew, Atheist, Republican or Democrat. But I don’t think that we should quietly shout our opinions on a piece of paper stuck to the back of our SUV while we hide in the driver’s seat. It’s time to stop the negativity, and a good place to start is by wiping the ass  of our cars.

And now for your reading pleasure:

Here is a list of  bumper stickers that I have seen in this town. And this quite possibly could be all of them. As I said they are few and far between:

I’ll keep my guns, money and freedom, you keep the “change”

Show me the Birth Certificate

Can’t find a doctor, blame a legislator

Jesus: Don’t leave Earth without Him

God doesn’t believe in athiests

1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given

Fight Crime: Shoot Back

If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?

Trial riders never die, they just go over the hill again and again

I ride horses and I vote

The 10 commandments are not optional

Does this ass [picture of Obama] make my car look big?

[picture of Obama with x over face] All you’ll be left with is change

Pro God, Pro Life, Pro Gun (This is the most oxymoronic one of them all, yes?!)

Evolution Happens—(That’s on my husband’s truck!)

Side note:  LG, Please apologize to your truck for this post.