The noble art of the bumper sticker has been so direly neglected in recent years, quippy witticisms saved for tweets and timelines instead of trafficking sentences to disinterested commuters. The first one I got was pretty straightforward: "Vegans have better sex." Then "End Deforestation", "Meat is Murder" and "Who Rescued Who?". Recently, it's been "Legalize Cops", "Defund Gender", and "So And So Beat The Other Guy, Deal With It" following down a rabbit hole of catchy phrases, political sniping, and good old nonsense. It seems like people are keener and keener these days, so the absurdity quotient of my hilarious bumper stickers has been steadily increasing. Anyone on the road unfortunate enough (or slow enough) to be passed up by my 2007 Mitsubishi Colt is getting a full-face shotgun blast of years worth of ideological ponderings, political slogans, earnest sentiment, and highly-tooled irony.
You might not like it. That's okay. But here's the important part: I like it.
Feels good to drive it around. My favorite exchanges are the looks of bewilderment, or scrutiny at red lights. Eyed like "What the hell kind of person even is that?" Bafflement is a nice reaction, and I choose to take it as a compliment. Sometimes you get anger though, like with the encounter I had with the owner of a lifted truck today. Well, maybe not anger, but certainly some form of masculine confrontation. Bald head, polo shirt, looked like somebody's jerk Wendy's manager, rolling down his window to yell at me in a residential street. Must have come up behind me at a stop sign, read everything, and decided to have himself a yelling contest with the wind at me. Couldn't make out a word he said, although my guess (based on his own thin blue line Punisher skull, and "I respect this Republic's flag" adhesives) is that he took issue with my "end police unions" sticker. Or maybe "qualified immunity is racism". Or "police profit is theft". Or possibly the new "my other ride was abducted by aliens" sticker, slapped above layers of less relevant or outdated ones. Either way, it was a hilarious encounter to me, and at the next red light, I made sure to be visibly phone-typing about the exchange to my reading club group chat.
Pulled up at a gas station, and my good fortune was unreal. What arrived directly behind me was a full-sized van of kids, driven by one stressed out parent. As she gets out of the car to pump her gas, the passengers will have nothing to occupy themselves with but the back end of my slogan-mobile. With any luck, they'll be reciting my nonsensical hot takes and genuinely progressive social politics, empowered by the ability of these quotes to confound and engage. It's the sort of thing that kids love to do. I smile serenely as I head into the store, imagining whether they'll lean more towards "banking is a human right" or "borders are a war crime." Better that these future citizens read my bumper stickers than Koch-funded PBS or the diamond slavers at Nickelodeon.
Inside the store, I peruse. Maybe a candy bar. Maybe a slim jim (though I like to call them slim jameses). Settle on a concentrated mango juice from the back shelves. There's no line, so I walk up and put my drink on the counter.
"Here's forty, put my change on #7."
"Sure pally. What's the deal with the bumper stickers though?"
I look at the cashier. He's in his early twenties, black shirt, decent haircut. Seems bored by his job, but he's paying attention to me. Kind of attractive too, though the fluorescent lighting isn't doing him any favors. The green face mask matches his eyes. I don't have a great response.
"Hmm?"
"I've seen your car in traffic a couple times, and you don't seem like the unhinged type who does that kind of thing sincerely. I'm just wondering, what's the deal with it?"
He's not confused or angry, just curious. Seems like he's not a chud about to harangue me over some nonsense that he got re-heated from the TV news, but I've got nearly a hundred stickers plastering my back end, and it's hard to summarize what they all mean in a single sentence. I start thinking of an honest answer. It takes a long second.
Pause, so he asks again.
"I mean, do you really believe all that stuff? Some of it seems real, but some of the other stuff is so ridiculous."
"Well, yeah, I believe in it. Otherwise I wouldn't express myself that way. With the ridiculous stuff, sometimes it's just a joke, but other times I'm trying to shift the paradigm of what's expected and acceptable. There's a concept of the Ovaltine window, and by expressing radical views that are outside the window, society shifts a little bit to that direction."
"So you're not literally telling the truth, then. You don't actually believe in a 'leash law for cops', you just think... what exactly?"
"Well, that's actually... uh. Hmm."
"It seems like you're just searching for a reaction, any reaction, and taking that to be 'mission accomplished'. Blaring extremity at people doesn't do anything to change minds, you know... I'm sure if you pulled up behind some guy with extreme views that said 'nuke the rainforest' or whatever, it wouldn't cause you to give up ideological ground to him just because he's so far removed from the norm."
I take a little sippy from the mango juice. I look him over again. College student? Grad student? Social media user? This customer means business. I cap the lid, set it down on the counter and start up again.
"I believe in the performative power of absurdity. Getting people to question the structures and norms that guide their lives, and really instigate a sense of critical awareness. Yeah, I'm not going to reach in and disentrench people from the politics they've chosen to submerge beneath, but the act of engaging with the absurdly reasonable or the reasonable absurd is a way of making them question whether they actually believe the stuff, or just go along with it. Like, if your assumptions and worldview are constructed in a way that my comments are shocking, then I've already made my point."
"Oh. So it's just an act then. A performance. You're trolling."
.
.
There's something dirty about the way he says the last word. Sleazy, even. As if he was accusing me of this nasty thing. He looks a bit disappointed. I stand there sweating under the early evening's unusual heat, and eyeball a couple customers working their pumps out front.
Oh. Uh... I'm scrambling. "Well, uh, you know under the hegemonic paradigm of ectothermic biopower, everything is performative. So, trolling or not, it's what we're already doing all the time." I cross my arms, secure in the sense that it was a good point. "There's that."
"What?"
Huh? What did he mean, 'what?'
"So, what do you mean by that. What, that is. What did you mean by 'what?'"
"I mean I don't know what you mean. It's a bunch of weird academic business, and I don't get it. I think you're trying to play a trick on me. But yeah, you're trolling with that big dumb car covered in nonsense. You might see yourself as, I don't know, challenging the status quo or whatever. But it just looks like you're begging for attention, that or a fight. Can you prove me wrong?"
I'm stunned. Don't know what to say. Maybe I could bluff some more theory at him? There's a fifth-wave quote that maybe applies? Do I remember enough to paraphrase it? I stagger back a few steps, mango drink in hand. I brace myself against a stand of Chip Nuts and Fruity Twizzlers, then avoiding eye contact, I impulsively check my phone. No notifications, nothing to escape from the immediacy of this guy calling me a fraud to my face. It's okay, it's fine, I think, head down in the snack aisle, he's just some dude, not someone who actually affects my life. I boggle at the lock screen for a few seconds, pretending to be reading a text. By the time I compose myself enough to look up again, he's with another customer.
I walk out of the store and stagger back into the Colt. The soccer mom is gone. Sit down, doors locked, ignition on, AC on low, satellite radio playing. It's not enough to soothe me, though. I haven't felt this weirded out about my discourse-mobile since my "pentagrams, not Pentagon" grinning Baphomet stickers were keyed out in the shape of a cross. Whatever, I mutter under my breath. Whatever whatever whatever. I count to five. At least the argument is over. I put the car in gear and start driving, but it's not two blocks before I get pulled over by some red-and-blue lights.
The police cruiser fills my rear view. I slow; we stop. The cop walks up, and asks me if I know why he stopped me.
There's a moment to pause, put my hands clearly in his sight, and tell him the legally optimal answer, which is hello sir no sir.
He asks me to get out of the car, walks me to the rear of my vehicle, while his partner opens my doors and starts going through my stuff. They're searching me! I begin to object, but he stops me. Then, wordlessly, as his partner rifles through the piles of trash in my hatchback, he pulls me towards the rear of the vehicle. Not threateningly, more like quietly amused, he points at a custom-printed sticker that reads "probable cause" in underlined size 48 Helvetica Bold on my trunk.