Make no mistake, there's a part of me that doesn't want any bumper stickers on 1/48/50; a part of me that wants to be completely incognito on this drive, a part of me that bristles even at having to have license plates, as if revealing something so day-to-day as the state in which I register my vehicle is revealing too much. Nebulous, right...? I want to exist, for those few months, mostly in the peripheral vision of the people I encounter.
But I don't want to take this trip, or myself, so seriously that I can't have a little fun, and there's something appealing to me about bumper stickers. To be clear, not the ones that try to be funny or clever, or insult other motorists, or wield some (usually radical) political statement. Actually, the only sticker with a message of any kind I'd ever consider brandishing on my bumper would be that old existential gem, Shit Happens, because ultimately that's all that needs to be said. Maybe, possibly, ones that announce where I've been, as well...although I don't think I'd ever go overboard upholstering the ass end of my vehicle with stickers from Boise, Bozeman and Brownsville, Dallas, Dubuque and Duluth, Albuquerque, Wichita and Saginaw. That's just tacky.
I do, however, enjoy the thought of giving a little glimpse of myself as I go, just a little impersonal Twitter post-caliber flash of who I am, and what I might be like, where I've been in the larger (existential) sense as I'm flying down the road at 80 miles per hour, and I see no better way of doing this than with sports logos.
Think about it, the teams we support, on whatever level (whether merely caring if they win or lose, or the super fan who dons the official team underwear), say a lot about us. There can be any number of reasons why a person likes a particular team, often having nothing to do with geography. Most of my teams have nothing to do with where I was raised or live currently, and those that do have a story behind them that is uniquely my own. I like the thought of another motorist being left to ponder what that story might be from just a short glimpse of my rear bumper as I pass on the left.
(Truth be told, I'm dying to explain each of these, but then they'd no longer be bumper stickers...let readers ponder as motorists one day will.
Or not...that's okay too. ;-)
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