I’m not a bumper sticker person.

I do enjoy the occasional bumper sticker (the favorite one here is “Cows, not Condos”) and, perhaps, at some point in my past, I may have even enjoyed “stealthing” a bumper sticker onto someone’s vehicle as some form of vigilante justice but, generally speaking, I don’t like to broadcast my preferences so prominently… call me sneaky, I don’t know.

My father-in-law? He’s a bumper sticker guy. He has several that give you a fairly good, but limited, understanding of him as a person. A part of me likes that sort of brief summation of a person but another part of me prefers to remain undefined by my rear… the rear of my car, that is…

I worked (in a previous life) in the, um, martial arts industry and there was considerable pressure to put a bumper sticker on my car declaring this fact. There is no quicker way to get your ass kicked outside a bar than to have a “I heart martial arts” bumper sticker on your car. Seriously. Think about it. I would want to kick my own ass for that… black belt or not. (Now, if I had a “keep honking, I’m reloading” sticker next to it the story might end differently….)

This brings me (ok, it doesn’t “bring” me but I’m going there anyway) to another point. The Yellow Ribbon. I was so dim as to think they were just a Montana thing. They aren’t. My husband has one on the Dodge with the name of his buddy on it. It looks nice. It is red-white-blue and helps me pick his rig out from the 47,000 other white Dodge pickups in this town. It shows his support.

I don’t have a ribbon on my car. A (uniform-wearin’) fella hassled me in the parking lot at the fair grounds last fall trying to get me to buy one for $5. One, I was there to visit the duck pond and didn’t have $5 with me… just a bag of stale bread. Two, at that time people had been stealing them off cars on a regular basis. Three, I didn’t WANT one. The end. Leave me alone you camouflage-wearing nut case. Do not stand in the parking lot hurling insults at me & my infant because we aren’t supporting the military… you don’t know what we support or how we choose to support it…. We support the National Guard via Doritos (more on that later). It is just not good form to verbally assault new mommies. So by now those of you who know me will know that I will NEVER have a ribbon on my car. I don’t respond well to bullies… no matter what I think of their cause. Don’t try to boss me around buddy. That is all.