I Could Be Wrong, But…

I could be wrong but I suspect that when a person slaps a bumper sticker on their car they are engaging in the desperately hopeful act of trying to make an indifferent world pay them a moment of attention.

I've had two bumper stickers in my life. The first one I made in my high school graphic arts class and slapped on my wreck of a 1965 Mustang. It read, Save the Wolf, and it had an image of a howling wolf that I had pirated from a Paul Winter Consort album.

When I was 17, and felt compelled to tell the world—or at least whoever was behind me breathing the noxious exhaust from my Mustang—Save the Wolf—what was I really saying? How could the words on that bumper sticker have "saved" even a single wolf? I suspect that bumper sticker didn't have much to do with saving wolves and was, in fact, as is everything in life, about me.

I was telling the world something about me. But what?

Did the bumper sticker I had made tell the world that in my junior year in high school I had read Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf nine times, as well as every other academic or popular work on wolves that I could find? Did it tell anyone how I had gone on an all-meat diet for months, just to see what it was like to eat as a wolf would eat? (Note to Dr. Atkins's estate: I lost weight!) Did the bumper sticker mysteriously reveal that, in biology class, as I stared out the windows daydreaming, I was fantasizing of walking out of school, hitch-hiking to Alaska, amassing mounds of camping gear and grub—including some strange life-sustaining thing Jack London's books called pemmican—and hiking into the Arctic wilderness to spend my life in the company of wolves? (Note to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's estates: Why couldn't you shitheads have chosen a fantasy of going off to live with the wolves?)

Recently I purchased the second-ever bumper sticker of my life. I freely admit that I felt a giddy pleasure as I slapped that message on my wreck of a 1986 Volvo: Dog Is My Co-Pilot.

But why, out of all the messages in the world that have been printed on opaque, weather-resistant material with adhesive backings, did I select that one? What am I telling the world about myself now? Am I saying how, at parties, I like to tweak intolerant Born Again Christians by mentioning the mysterious coincidence of God being Dog spelled backward? Or am I simply saying that, more often than not, my dog is riding with me in my car? But co-piloting? Would someone reading my bumper sticker seriously believe—should I have a heart attack while blasting down I-5 in heavy traffic—that my golden retriever is poised to stop drooling, expertly paw the steering wheel, and maneuver the car safely to the shoulder? (Reality Check: My dog is lolling his head out the window, compulsively gulping blasts of air and glancing over at me every two seconds, using golden retriever mind-melding technique to communicate his thoughts: We there yet? How much longer till we're at the beach? Huh? Got any biscuits? You brought the float toy, right? Whoa! Lolling my head out the car window and gulping air at 70 miles per hour is awesome! You gotta try it! Dude, I can't wait to run across the hot sand and hurtle my body through endless space and ka-splash into that cold frigging ocean! )

If I get a new car I won't be able to remove the Dog Is My Co-Pilot bumper sticker from my old car. It has, as the cultural anthropologists say about elderly people who won't move to new neighborhoods, "aged in place."

But wait. If I get a new car I could get the third bumper sticker of my life.

What new message would I choose? What message would be eternally true, deep with layers of meaning, and would stand the test of time, yet would also be available in a colorful assortment of opaque weather-resistant material with adhesive backing?

Perhaps something about the central ambition of my life?

I'd Rather Be Schtumphing Ashley Judd.

Wait. I meant, I'd Rather Be Writing My Novel.

Perhaps a direct command?

Kill Your Television.

Nah. I'm not going to put a message on my car that both the Taliban and fanatical Christians like our President and Attorney General would approve of.

Maybe something Zen?

My Other Car Is A Car.

Maybe something cynical yet comical?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel is an Oncoming Train.

I've always sneered at folks driving around with Love Your Mother and an image of the earth on the bumper of their gross-polluting Volkswagen vans. So I doubt I would follow the hippie path with something like, You Can't Hug Your Kid with Nuclear Arms.

Perhaps something nihilistic.

Elvis is Dead.

Something aggressive?

Yes, I Do Own the Road.

Something political?

If the People Lead, the Leaders will Follow? Anarchy Begins at Home? Bush Lied?

One of my favorite quotes is of Philo of Alexandria who supposedly said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."

That message is true, deep with layers of meaning, and, since Philo said it many centuries ago, has already stood the test of time.

But it's too long. And it's too complex for a bumper sticker.

Yet, perhaps Philo of Alexandria's wisdom has already been modernized—that is, dumbed-down and sexed-up—in three short words:

Mean People Suck.

That's it!

Now, what car should I choose to go with my new bumper sticker?

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