Marko had a thoughtful post up on the topic of
his minivan's sticker-free rump.
Meanwhile, observe one of the more colorful specimens of
H. hippieus BroadRippleus:
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| Nuh-uh! YOU love your mother! |
I normally don't sticker up my car like a third-grader's notebook as a matter of taste, but with the Subaru being largely devoid of anything like aesthetic appeal, I have gone a little crazy, indulging myself with stickers I never would or could have applied on a BMW roadster with a plastic rear window.
When I was younger and first started working at a gun shop, I took all the cool window decals we got from the various manufacturers and plastered them all over the rear windows of my 280ZX. Plus one of those suction cup signs reading "Caution: Driver Carries Only $20 Worth Of Ammunition." I shudder at my younger self a lot.
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| Not being Gray Man isn't very Sheepdog. |
Nowadays, I refrain from the overt gun-related stuff*, partly out of a sense of mischievous glee at the hippieflage afforded by the stickers on the Forester, and partly out of the sober reality that I don't want to have to replace a window every now and again just for some yob to find out that I don't leave anything in that car that's worth more than the driver's side window.
*
I like that the BCM and INGO stickers are nice and cryptic...
That's the same reason I don't have anything obviously gun related on mine as well. The "Terrorist Hunting License" and the Zombie Squad stickers might be considered a clue, but nothing that screams "Free gun inside!"
ReplyDeleteI like the subtle juxtaposition of "keep yer laws off my body" and "i heart obamacare" on BroadRippleus' ride
ReplyDeleteAn old time Sheriff once told me that there is NO sticker you can put on a vehicle that won't tick off somebody, and if that somebody is the officer that decides whether to pull you over for something minor,and give you a ticket or a warning, guess what is going to happen.
ReplyDeleteMy cars remain sticker free.
Dennis the librarian shusher.
Dennis the librarian shusher,
ReplyDelete"My cars remain sticker free."
If you don't take any stickers off my car, I won't put any on yours, and then we'll all be happy! :)
I hate that "I <3 Obamacare" sticker.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I see one, I have to resist the urge to scream at the driver of the adorned car "Fine! Then you fuckin' pay for it!"
It really messes with my zen thing, man.
I succumbed to sticker mania several years ago, pasting a small 5-point star on the back left corner because it was the agency decal, available only to members, and advantageous to allow Those Who Know (on both sides) with whom they might be dealing.
ReplyDeleteNow in retirement, in a fit of pique I added a small Molon Labe decal, about which I was recently questioned. The questioner ignored the Sheriff's Office star and focused on the opposite side small Greek lettering, inquiring as to what it meant. I replied "I think it's a Greek fraternity of some kind" and that satisfied them.
I'm undecided about leaving them on the truck, not having reached a conclusion about the current positives or negatives of displaying either.
Every time I ponder a bumper sticker, I pause with the same thought.
ReplyDeleteThough years ago, I recall an excellent sticker. I'm not sure if the 20-something college looking girl meant it to be ironic, a brain twister, or if she was serious...but her Jeep Cherokee had one sticker.
"Vote Anarchist."
That was it. Since it was in traffic, there was no way to ask her what the point was.
I've seen a lot of...provactive stickers out there (the "Honk if you've never seen an Uzi fired out of a car window before" looked a tad bit over the top to me) and some, while they'd be neat hanging on a wall in your "gun room" at home, or over the work or loading bench...putting them on the car may be a bad idea.
Though I was sorely tempted to find a "Chthulu 2012" for the ride. And a yard sign. I restrained myself.
Secret code: anfwer ptetit
Conversational words of about 4 AM that I'm sure I've heard before...
I generally have always taken Marko's view but at the one IDPA match I made in South Carolina during my relocation experiment a fellow shooter was selling these hitch covers and I just couldn't resist.
ReplyDeleteI think only gunnies get it though. I just recently had a co-worker tell me he thought it was a tank to honor the old Atari 2600 Combat game.
My brother started a security business so he can write off all his tactical gear. 50 yrs old, never owned a gun before 2013 and now he thinks he's Rick freaking Taylor. He's got almost every tacticool sticker known to man on the back of his SUV along with his bogus business name and credo in big vinyl letters. "THE _______ GROUP Home Invasion Counter Ops Consultants."
ReplyDeleteI told him one thing he might want to advise any future clients against is putting gun stickers all over their vehicles so as not to tip off any home invaders.
ScottJ, even though most gunnies would recognize the target, I suspect very few would recognize the Mozambique Drill as such.
ReplyDeleteOnly two adornments on my car are a Square & Compass and a U.S. Army star. Those two say more than any collection of bumper stickers.
If I want to engage someone in persuasive dialogue, I'll do it FTF, not on something which will distract them while they're behind me operating a vehicle.
gvi
WV: sir ledIfwh - the only Welsh knight of the Round Table,
Since the VHF/UHF and HF antennas on the truck give it away, I do have a couple of amateur radio stickers (Including one that reads DANGER, 500,000 OHMS).
ReplyDeleteThat and a USAA sticker are the only permanent stickers, I've stopped putting on the NRA life and political stickers. And nobody, not even me, cares where I went to school 30 years ago.
I do have some magnetic signs that go on for special events and other occasions.
TAM !
ReplyDelete$20. WONT BUY YOU MUCH AMMO NOWADAYS
BUMPERSTICKER: I HAVE MANY SKILLSETS AND TALENTS UNFORTUNATELY IN TODAYS
ECONOMY NONE ARE REVENUE PRODUCING
(IN SMALL LETTERS) IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU ARE TOO CLOSE
The Bitch in the minivan did way too much acid when she was following the Dead.- I drive a 12 year old pickup with patches of primer & I wear bib-overalls A LOT. Nobody ever gives me a second look in Ky. When I park I pick the newest BMW, Escalade, Ect. I could have gold in the old thing and nobody bother it. Ain't cammo great?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I love it when the progs sticker up their vehicles.
ReplyDelete"Friend or Foe" and "Target Identification and Acquisition".
Much like enemy uniforms for their cars.
I may have to buy a couple hundred and pass them out at WalMart this summer. lol
One American flag on the CRX. Makes it easier to find at the airport.
ReplyDeleteThe old F-150 has a few,(AQHA, LaRue, Delta Waterfowl, SCI), they are the only things holding the tailgate together.
Gerry
Show nothing at all. Stickers don't make converts, and it's better that hostiles can't single out you (your car).
ReplyDeleteI put an oval 762 sticker on the new truck a few weeks ago, same as I'd put on the one before it. I've had people ask me if I'm an ultramarathoner at least three times.
ReplyDeleteAs if.
The old F150 has a number of stickers, all hunting related (rather de riguer here in Lower Alabama) but I keep the subject limited to archery, which tempts fewer thieves. In college the Pinto was adorned with Cthulu Saves.
ReplyDeleteI had a Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems Engine Test Vehicle on my RX-7 when I worked at Rocketdyne.... Green on Silver mylar with a radiation warning trefoil for "Warning, Excited Atoms on Board". I watched a bunch of hippies get real close, read the sticker, and back waaaaayy off behind me.
ReplyDeleteBuckaroo Banzai for the Win!
I'm with Marko. No stickers on the current Subaru wagon, though when the prior one was hitting the point of worth-less-than-routine-maintenance-costs I was tempted to put on a "Compostable" bumper sticker I had from way back. The compostable sticker was handed out by the city for people to put on trash barrels to be reserved for, well compostable, organic stuff that the city would haul away on special trucks. (Now they have dedicated brown wheeled bins, so the stickers are obselete.) I thought a clapped out car labeled "compostable" would be funny, but on reflection figured I'd get pulled over for Misuse of City Property or something. Minimize the loose ends and all that.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit I have a couple of military related ones on my back glass, but that's urban camo here... And the INGO one is a good one!
ReplyDeleteI have a local zoo sticker, and an EAA sticker. Since all it says is "EAA", nobody but fellow members of the experimental aircraft association recognize it. Between the two, I can distinguish the econocar from the mass of similar-colored sedans in the parking lot from most angles.
ReplyDeleteNow the plane, it has fuzzy dice (twenty-sided, green) hanging up in the cockpit, but then it's useless trying not to stick out like a bush plane on an asphalt ramp anyway.
The local, um, unlicensed handgun merchant a long time ago had a bumpersticker on his car from HCI, the predecessors to the Brady loons.
ReplyDeleteDon't ask how I knew that....
Not on my vehicle, but...
ReplyDelete"GUN CONTROL MEANS USE BOTH HANDS"
"...I shudder at my younger self a lot."
ReplyDeleteinorite? $20 will barely get you a mag's worth of Gold Dots.
Actually, there are rules of etiquette governing sticker use, but you and the minivan driver both seem to be adhering to them, so...good on both of you I guess.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/21/100-bumper-stickers/
I only have two stickers on my car. One is my NRA Life Member sticker put on the rear passenger side window of my Pilot which is behind tinted glass. You have to really look to see it.
ReplyDeleteThe second is the gunny Coexist sticker in the rear window just to confuse the hippies of Asheville. Gunnies get it but the hippies just know it doesn't look quite right.
From the other side of the looking glass, try flying a Darwinfish here in the Bible Belt...
ReplyDeleteIronically, probably pretty easy in the parking lot of a UCC or Unitarian church.
DeleteA Persimmon-Stuffed Possum In Every Pot!
ReplyDeleteI've only got a 12th Aviation Brigade sticker on mine, while the wife has an Alliance Logo on the passenger c pillar window , and a horde logo on the other side.
ReplyDeleteWhat's "LUNA"?
ReplyDeleteIt's on both the HippieMobile and the TammWagen.
I go back and forth on stickers. I get a chuckle out of some, but most of the time I leave them off the truck and just slap them on the toolbox instead.
ReplyDeleteIIRC, LUNA is a local music shop frequented by the hippies Tam is trying to blend into.
ReplyDeleteG98,
ReplyDelete"What's "LUNA"?"
The local indie music store.
There was a Poli-SciFi study that found that anything more than one sticker on the car indicated a certain amount of crazy. The more stickers - the more crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnything more than 7(?) stickers put the owner into the barkin' mad, howlin' moon-bat, foaming at the mouth, alien butt probed, California Democrat Legislator territory.
Despite what you may think, I have no stickers on my 4-Dorf ride.
No stickers on mine yet, but I've got a small "I Aim To Misbehave" decal on order from Amazon that's either going to end up on the back glass of my Elantra, or perhaps adding a little pizzaz to a smoke-tint front license plate cover.
ReplyDeleteI've also got one of simon-jester.org's window-sticker takes on that classic "Serenity" quote, but I'm not quite sure where it is at the moment. If I find it, I may put it on the back window instead. So people will know that I aim to misbehave coming AND going.
;)
--Wes S.
(Keywords: "Vraniti and." Vraniti and WHAT?)
On the rear window of my Element, a white apple on the passenger side and on the drivers side a outline of Serenity (firefly class).
ReplyDeletesooo . . . does the "SUB" on the back of your little doorslammer mean it's got it's own spike leather collar, or just that it occasionally gets dunked in deeper than usual puddles?
ReplyDeleteBSR
There was a faded "Support Our Troops" ribbon magnet on my (Toyota) pickup when I bought it. I replaced the ribbon with a new one.
ReplyDeleteI could never bring myself to put my favorite stickers on a vehicle. "God is coming, and is She pissed". Cartoon huskies in line, "Unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes." "Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."
I'm with Marko - there's really nothing I want to communicate via sticker. And the ones I'd be tempted to display will get you keyed by the persons of diversity and tolerance up here in the Pacific Northwest (not so much in the rural area I live, but I go into Seattle from time to time, and they WILL key you or break a window).
ReplyDelete"A closed mind is a wonderful thing to lose", like hers is open... TS
ReplyDeleteWell, it can sometimes work in your favor:
ReplyDeleteWe got passed on a busy Cali freeway by a small Toyota pickup. My wife noticed the very low front tire and I noticed the NRA Life Member decal on the shell rear window. We had to help a fellow NRA member.
It took a while, but we finally caught up with them. The horn and frantic sign language convinced them to pull over; possibly saving the now flat tire, possibly saving a blow-out.
I'm thinking of putting a Horde sticker on my Suburban.
ReplyDeleteThe only good Human is a dead Human.
I tried to at least keep my stickers it non-political--it's not my fault the Denver democrats decided to turn my Magpul sticker into one.
ReplyDelete"a Greek Fraternity of some kind."
ReplyDeleteTerrific!
I keep a low profile in the land of Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi, Waxman and Governor Moonbeam. I have the Calvin and Hobbes one where they're riding in the box, and a Sierra Club Hiker. I'm a mole there, you know. These make it easy to find the car in the parking lots full of the barking moonbat cars with the two dozen stickers. That and the spare tire I have locked on the roof rack.
Did you know if you go to the Promenade in Santa Monica, most days Jerry Rubin (the other one) is sitting there at a card table selling all these cockamamie stickers? I bought a "Kill your TV" sticker from him out of a sense of sympathy that surprised me. . .
I mean, a grown man in his dotage, who hasn't outgrown campus radicalism and is reduced to selling odd stuff like at a swap meet.
Tam -
ReplyDeleteIs that "7" in the middle of the hatchback some sort of reference to vigilantes? ("777" and such-like)
stay safe.
wv = proportional dwithmas. Well of course they are proportional!
One look at that license plate and I picture the driver with her eyes closed and fingers in her ears.
ReplyDeleteMy ride is lacking an abundance of stickers, only wearing a lonely white oval with TX, in the corner of the back window, and two mini magnetic ribbons on the trunk lid, for POW/MIA and "Texas supports our troops." I'm hesitant to add others, like the Gadsden flag in the glovebox, tho the one for the Tall Ship Elissa might be a good parking lot ID, as there's a LOT of silver and white cars and trucks in SE Texas.
ReplyDeleteI doubt the minivan driver noted the irony of the "closed mind" sticker being so close to the "turn off FOX" sticker. Just saying, Alemaster
ReplyDeleteStickers are a NO on my ride. As much as I am tempted by Darwin, Wallace tetrapods and the T-Rex eating Jesus fish, I pass.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, anytime I think of putting a sticker on my ride, I remember that people with NRA LIFE MEMBER or I HEART OBAMACARE stickers emblazoned on their rides usually 1) Drive like douchecanoes and 2) Usually ignite some desire in me to get in front of them of ruin their driving day.
I resist that urge most of the time. However, I remain convinced that most people who will advertise their beliefs on the back of their ride are always ready to shove them in your face. I prefer to be left alone, as such I don't advertise my personal beliefs. Nor do I feel obligated to shove them in the faces of others.
In fact, I am thinking of removing the only emblem on the trunk that identifies the model of my car ("Mazdaspeed3"), because everyone on the planet who reads it, then comes up alongside and wants to drag race. ~Insert eye roll here~. It gets a bit old when every kid on the planet wants to race.
-Rob
WV: ctinchu persons, are those almost, but not quite followers of cthulu?
John Richardson: It's not too hard to confuse the hippies round here. Glad to see another Ashevillin.
ReplyDeleteI had 2 of my "Boycott China" stickers that I used to give away free on the back of my truck, but when it got replaced the wife didn't want any stickers on the new car.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree that the number of bumper stickers might be a good indication of "crazy person". I once had an encounter with a psychotic of the first order and her car had so many stickers on the back window that I couldn't imagine being able to see through it.
It is a known fact that real Jeeps are exempt from the "n = crazy" sticker rule.
ReplyDeleteAnyone that would take his daily driver to terrain intended for mountain goats or alligators most certainly already passed crazy many mods ago.
No lie: I just spent five minutes trying to find a badge emblem from a Nissa Versa, to buy and send you to add to the back of your SUB. No luck.
ReplyDeleteArgh: *Nissan Versa.
ReplyDeleteI have a sticker that's a pentagram with the word "Clergy." I decided not to put it on my bumper when I realized that it would cause me to waste a lot of time in conversations with people I don't care to meet.
ReplyDeleteI keep it handy though; someday someone's going to do something in a parking lot to anonymously earn it.
The more you write about your Forester, Tam, the more I want one.
ReplyDeleteI was riding back from church a coupla weeks ago, and pointed one out to my driver and his wife. It was sitting right next to us at the stoplight, and neither of them had noticed its existence.
Seems like a good, servicable, non-ostentatious vehicle. With a perfectly balanced engine.
There is, of course, the general-purpose bumper sticker, whose message is always true:
ReplyDeleteThey're Lying.
It's OK to shudder nowadays at your younger self, but it's even better that your younger self actually DID IT and frightened the Hippies.
ReplyDeleteI only have a Humuhumunukunuku fish sticker on my truck.
My current horseless carriage is an Olds Intrigue 2000.
ReplyDeleteStickerless.
My previous was an '89 Isuzu Trooper, NRA Life Member on the driver's wing window (remember them?) behind the tint.
Nothing else.
gfa
I have two stickers on teh back window of my Ranger: one is a roadracer with knee down, which I think was cut from a larger tire brand sticker, and the other is "I feel the need, the need for SPEED!" Both date from the mid 80's, older than the truck itself!
ReplyDeleteI removed them from my earlier truck, an '83 Mazda diesel, using a razor blade and heat gun. The diesel was rated @57 hp(!), which was the basis for the speed sticker :D
For a very short time, I had an "I (heart) nonsmokers" sticker on that Mazda, which had a dual focus for me: as a diesel driver, it annoyed me to see others who clearly had no idea how to manage their throttle (black smoke), and being allergic to nicotine. Being screamed at in traffic quickly convinced me that it was a bad idea to put anything even remotely suggesting I might disapprove of their life choices.
I put it on just before leaving for a trip down to Willow Springs Raceway. It didn't last the whole 700mi+ round trip. I scraped it off at the motel when I arrived. The animosity displayed by the public was frightening. I've never seen another one of those stickers displayed.
My three favorite stickers (none of which are on my car):
ReplyDelete1) [seen on the back window of a pickup] "This sticker is faster than your non-functional spoiler".
2) [red sticker seen on Rice Univ campus] "If this sticker is blue, you're driving too fast".
3) [All time favorite] "God is my co-pilot, but the Devil is my bombadier."
What, the hippie minivan doesn't have a "Coexist" sticker? Thought those were mandatory for lefty loons.
ReplyDeleteAll my motorcycle helmets have a cut down sticker from my favorite record label: GONER.
ReplyDelete