Choosing a bumper sticker

It's not as simple for me as it is for most people to choose one.

I'm sorry to admit it, but I'm a bit of a bumper sticker curmudgeon.

You see, I do a lot of driving for work. Like, a LOT. Often while I'm stuck in traffic, the car in front of me is graced with a bumper sticker. One that I'll get to read for way too long if we're not moving very fast. Eventually, it starts galling me, and I get annoyed.

Mostly they're inane sayings or comments, like "My child is an honor student at Washington High". Like I give a shit how brilliant you think your dopey kid is. He's probably going to grow up to be an asshole anyway. Most people do. Get used to the idea.

These days, bumper stickers are usually political in nature. Obamas, McCains, a few Ron Pauls, even a Hillary that had an Obama sticker plastered over it at a 45-degree angle, so you could see the Hillary sticker beneath it.

Actually, I wished I'd gotten a photo of that one, because at the time (soon after the primaries ended) it supposedly represented the car owner's idea that he or she was a Clinton support until Obama won the nomination, and then threw their support to him. It was a bold and elegant statement of party unity that would have given me another blog post, at the very least.

But mostly, I find bumper stickers to be banal and hacky in nature. The only bumper sticker I've even put on my car in the last 20 years was the Ned Lamont sticker from 2006. The car (a 1987 Dodge Aires K) finally died, but you can still see the sticker I included as a sort of homage at the 1:10 mark in this short video I made back in December.

And it's not like I refrain from bumper stickers because I drive nice cars or anything. We haven't owned a new car since my wife bought her '98 Jeep Cherokee. Since then, it's been a parade of cheap used cars for me. It's the only way we can afford to keep the sailboat, our only indulgence.

Anyway, I finally broke down and got a bumper sticker for my car. I didn't want to be just another "Obama" car, because that takes little imagination. I wanted to show my support for Barack, but I wanted to do it in a more obscure way. So I finally decided on something a little snarky that might make the reader think, if only for a moment. Here's what I ended up with:

The funny thing is, the GOP base will see that bumper sticker and some of the dumber ones will arrive at the conclusion that I support McCain. Which, judging from the idiocy we're seeing in some areas of Connecticut these days, might prevent my car from being vandalized.

Now I've got to find a "Palisn't" sticker!

Or maybe, "Palincapable".

Go ahead and run with it!