Planet Claire
I get all of my politics from other people’s bumper stickers. The phrases are so eloquent and they show such an exhaustive grasp of the complexities of each issue that they really help me to understand politics. I used to consider the topic of abortion to be a complicated problem with many sides—partial-birth methods, a woman’s right to choose, a situation in which the mother’s life is in danger—but then one day I was on my way to the Gap because they were having a sale, and I saw a bumper-sticker that said “Vote Pro-Choice—Satan.” That’s right, the person driving in front of me personally knew how Satan felt about abortion. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Satan is evil and that I should always disagree with him. Of course, there’s always the risk that the bumper sticker contained a typo and the quote was actually from Santa. But unlikely.
Not all bumper stickers provide you with answers; sometimes, they make you think for yourself. After I saw the “Adam and Steve” sticker—you know, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”—I made up my mind about gay marriage. But then a few weeks later, I saw another bumper sticker on the topic. This time, the sticker used arithmetic to argue its point, claiming that marriage “equaled” one male stick figure plus one female stick figure. At first, I thought the bumper sticker was backing up the Adam and Steve argument, but upon further examination I realized that what looked like a simple statement was actually an intricate examination of both the gay rights and women’s movements. I mean, what if the woman wears pants and the man wears shorts? Can they get married? What if it’s one man and one drag queen, or two lesbians but one promises to always wear pants and the other a skirt? And what about traditional Scottish weddings, in which the men wear kilts? Would the groom be the male stick figure or the female stick figure? I never thought about the issue in such detail. After much debate, I decided that Scotsmen should be allowed to marry. And if Scotsmen can marry, so can lesbians in pants. It’s a mathematical fact—the bumper sticker proved that—and everyone knows that you can’t argue with math.
Some members of the general public prefer to plaster their cars with philosophical statements. “What if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about?” a Dodge Neon once asked, and I thought about it for days. A teenage girl in a Jeep Wrangler had two bumper stickers on her car: one said “Exotic Princess,” and the other “You say I’m a bitch like it’s a bad thing.” I’ve never read such a devastating critique on the intersection of the fairytale mentality with the feminist movement, and in the Harris Teeter parking lot, no less.
The only bumper stickers I don’t fully understand are the ones that support or oppose a specific politician. Just reading the name “John Kerry” on the back of your Volvo isn’t going to sway me either way. You need to back up your opinion with some facts. How about “Do you like puppies? So does John Kerry.” Instead of “W the President,” or “F the President” how about, “W the President: he gave me this Lexus” or “F the President, he killed my grandma.” Without these hard truths, how am I supposed to make up my mind and support the name on the back of your bumper?
I also have a problem with the bumper sticker “My boss is a Jewish carpenter,” a phrase that I understand refers to Jesus. I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think Jesus’ main occupation was carpentry. If he were mingling at a cocktail party and someone asked what he did for a living, he would probably say something about being savior of mankind rather than, “I make tables.” This bumper sticker is misleading and only makes me think about furniture that I saw in the Pottery Barn catalog.
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Despite my sincere appreciation for bumper stickers, I don’t have any on my own car. Try as I might, I can’t distill my philosophical or political opinions into one simple statement. I suppose I could put the Satan sticker on my car, but since the devil has never spoken to me specifically about abortion, it would be a little presumptuous to put words in his mouth. I want my own statement, something I’ve never seen before. But until they make a bumper sticker that encompasses my particular worldview in five words or fewer, I’m going to stick to something concrete—a disco ball hanging from my rearview mirror.