The Pink Shoe Diaries

Last week I wrote a few guidelines for bumper sticker use. I realized the other day that I left one thing off the What Not To Put On Your Bumper list.

Now, I am not easily offended. If you want to put your political beliefs on your bumper, even if they are in antithesis to mine, I don't have a problem with it. But if you are going to have an opinion for the driving world to see, I think you should at least ATTEMPT to be a little less than totally offensive and disgusting.

I'm getting to my point.

I am driving home from work the other day and a giant pickup truck (of course) swings into my lane. I noticed immediately he had a huge bumper sticker on his back bumper. In retrospect it may not have been any larger than a normal bumper sticker, but the offense I felt in looking at it was so great it may as well have been a Billboard.

It said (and I quote)

ABORTION: Infant Genocide.

First of all, to say the use of the words "infant" and "genocide" in this context is dubious would be a euphemism. It's like "I have an opinion and I am going to be so horrible about it that there is no way you will be able to relate to ME or my thoughts". So he defeats his own purpose in placing such a sticker on his car. I would take a "Choose Life" sticker any day over this atrocity.

And I haven't even told you the worst part.

The "O" in abortion was a SWASTIKA.

What is the purpose in that? Is he trying to point out that not only is he anti-abortion but also a Neo Nazi? Or that a woman contemplating an abortion is a Hitler? I was so outraged. I of course had to call Andy and then Jenn because what good is being outraged if there is no one to be outraged to/with? I could barely restrain myself from pulling up next to him and screaming something like "I don't know about Infant Genocide but i am about to commit Pickup Truck Driving Asshat Homocide". But lucky for him I thought the better of it and instead fumed silently in his wake.

A wise man once asked "If I were to give you a steak with mushrooms and onions, flamed from the grill and a loaded baked potato still steaming but served it on a trash can lid, would you still want it? Or would it be more appealing to you served on a fine serving dish? It's all about the delivery". That wise man was Bill Cosby and he had a point. You are entitled to whatever opinion you want, but when you are SO offensive in your message it actually does you more harm than good. Who in their right mind would look at that bumper sticker and think "that man read my mind?".

And I guess that's my whole point.