bumper stickers

Seen any good bumper stickers lately?

My fifth grade teacher used to say that a person's intelligence is inversely proportional to the number of stickers on their car. I don't know if I buy that, but I'm not ashamed to say that I will think less of you if you have a "my kid beat up your honor student" bumper sticker on your car, especially if it's alongside one of Calvin pissing on any professional sports team's logo.

You'd think I'd see more unusual or remarkable bumper stickers in the summertime, with all the cars pouring onto the Cape from other states. But no, not often. So I chuckled last week when I saw this:

(Get one here.)

The "CHOOSE LIFE: YOUR MOTHER DID" stickers are pretty common around here, much more so than the apt retort: "AGAINST ABORTION? DON'T HAVE ONE!"

Best Iraq-related bumper sticker, spotted in Provincetown last year: "OH LOOK HONEY, ANOTHER PRO-LIFER FOR WAR." Ha.

I'm seeing a lot fewer "Support The Troops" ribbons and stickers lately. My favorite bumper sticker in that vein says: "I SUPPORT THE TROOPS MORE THAN YOU DO." Because really, it had gotten ridiculous. When someone sincerely, vehemently, angrily argues with you that it is not possible to support the troops unless you believe unconditionally in whatever their leader has ordered that they do -- well, then it's time to hang it up and take the conversation somewhere else, because a person who genuinely believes this has gone round the bend, and should be left to mop up his own spittle. In the face of that bizarre mentality I definitely can't blame people for being tired of those displays, though I am much heartened to see that local support efforts of actual substance have not slacked off.

But I digress.

I can't find a picture of my all-time favorite bumper sticker. I have the original somewhere (though not on the car), but if I start looking in places I think it might be, I will be hopelessly sidetracked by books I haven't seen in years, photographs, yearbooks and God knows what else. So I can't dig it up; I have to hit the hay. But it's white with simple grey letters, and it says:

UNITARIAN JIHAD

Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true.

(Remember the Unitarian Jihad article? It's as good now as it was in 2005, I promise.)