Attitudes Not Platitudes

The Goddess of Green Lights woke up on the wrong side of bed yesterday morning. So I had plenty of time to read all the bumper stickers on the dark green Mustang convertible in front of me, as we hit red light after red light on my way out of Petaluma to work.

I’d Tell You to Go to Hell But I Work There (and I don’t want to see you everyday)

How About a Big Cup of Shut The F**k Up

It’s been 365 Days Since I Gave a Sh*t.

I Used to be F**king Stupid But Then We Broke Up.

Who the f’ing hell drove this car? Tried as I did, I never got a good look at the driver and there wasn’t a passenger to give me any auxillary clues. The car didn’t pull into SSU as I assumed it would (had to be a student, right?), so I wasn’t able to park nearby to get a good look. Drat and dagnabbit!

I really wanted to know who drove that car. Would the persona created from the bumpersticker ‘tudes match the person who actually got out of the car? A fellow or gal as aggressive and rude as the stickers,  short hair with a confrontational stance perhaps, with loud, even cruel, laughter? Or reserved, with a small ever-present smirk and few, though pointed, comments? Would he/she be constipated? Why do I think this car belonged to a fella?

Or would the driver be against type?  Mild-mannered, the proverbial “nice, quiet, never any trouble” kind of guy yet seething on the inside, bones buried in the back yard, a secret room filled with the photos and trophies of a stalker. Were these bumper stickers meant in all irony? Perhaps it was an uncle’s car and they were somewhat embarrassed to be driving it. Maybe the bumperstickers were the only things available when rust spots began showing up. A soccer mom with a hidden message for the coach?

Near the key-lock for the trunk, sort of the center for all the wordy messages, was a sunbleached image of a Native American dreamcatcher with a superimposed wolf’s head in the middle and large feathers or long wooly tails hanging down. Now -- does this add depth and dimension to the character, create empathy? Does it blend with the messages or add a different, contradictory flavor? Or does it read as erroneous, something that came with the car (assuming it was second hand), or that someone stuck on as a joke? 

Who do you see driving this car?