Shallow Thinker

It has been said that “the clothes make the man.” While the pureness of this statement can be debated, it certainly carries with it a good lesson. How you dress defines a lot about what people think of you.

I think that this also holds true for one’s vehicle. Your accessories say a lot about who you are. So, to me, it’s important to choose just the right amount of “decoration” and each thing needs to speak clearly about who you are. For instance, the old car with 600 bumper stickers says to me “I don’t care what you think because I can’t decide what I think.”

This weekend, I adorned our minivan with those cool little stickers that have a stick figures for each member of the family. (We had a tough decision on whether to put Ladybug on as a baby or as a little girl. Ultimately we went with the little girl since she’s walking now….well, that and because I don’t want to have to peel the baby off and put the little girl one on later when I’ve lost the little girl sticker.) These stickers not only give information about our family structure, they indicate how important the family is to us.

So that’s all sappy and good, but I’ve been trying to decide on what my car (The Green Goblin) needs to say about me. The first choice has revolved around the front tag. Originally, I had one on there that advertised the dealer, but it was made of very thin metal and couldn’t withstand the rigors of being scrubbed when I washed my car. (Maybe I’m working out too much!) So what should my front tag be? Here’s the thought process:

1) “I Love Jesus” - while this would be great, I think that it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for when I’m tailgating someone and blowing my horn at them. The other driver might think to themselves “hey, this guy loves Jesus. He’ll forgive me if I keep going slow in the left lane or if I cut him off.” And it probably doesn’t make Jesus look very good when I’m slinging the car sideways around curves. Let’s see what my other options are…

2) “Move Over You Old Windbag!” - This one does help me with explaining my desire for slightly greater speeds from the other drivers. However, when I pull into the parking lot at church, I would probably offend a lot of the old windbags blessed saints. My car would probably get keyed a lot…

3) Picture of Fuzzy Bunnies - No, I didn’t consider this one for even a minute. I don’t know how it got into my shopping basket. Seriously, I didn’t even notice those cute little faces. Each one making a different facial expression. And I certainly didn’t give them names like “Flopsy”, “Mr. BunBun”, and “Dennis”.

4) Car Logo - To be honest, I’ve never understood this one. If I’m driving a Nissan with the emblem right there on the grill, do I really need a tag that tells people that I’m driving a Nissan? I’ve often thought of getting one that says “Lexus” and putting it on my Nissan, but I figured no one would get the joke. Except Lance…he loves my stupid jokes.

5) Toby - To the innocent passerby it says “hey, look at me…some college was dumb enough to give me a degree.” To the other Mercerians, it says “I don’t support my school financially, but I will buy a pretty tag.” But most importantly, to the slow-poke in front of me it says “RAAAAAARRRRR - I’m a mean bear and I’ll eat you so MOVE OVER….RAAAAAARRRR.” Yes, this is definitely the one: