Customize It

Customize it!

Someone stole my Obama bumper sticker right off the bumper of my brand new Jeep, the very same one about which I wrote so lovingly in my last blog entry.

It may not seem like such a big deal to you, and I’m sure it won’t if you’re a McCain supporter, but it’s a big deal to me.

For one, I picked up that particular bumper sticker on my last trip to Washington D.C. I used to travel a lot for business, but not so much anymore. And so it was on a business trip that I found myself with a few hours to myself and took the Metro over to Union Station. Lots of great things to see and do in Union Station! Anyways, they have this adorable little Washington D.C. store there, and for the life of me I wish I could remember the name of it (and I really do wish I could remember the name of it) that sells lots of stuff about politics, elections and Washington D.C. stuff. My son is an ex Coastie, so I found a cute t-shirt for him announcing “No, you don’t know me” with the words Witness Protection Program underneath. Funny stuff, that.

Anyway, I was there last year too and purchased both an Obama sticker and a Hillary sticker, because, well hey, back then, they both had an equal shot. Both of them proclaimed “Make History” and I wanted to be a part of making that history. But it was Barack who won and so it was his bumper sticker I proudly placed on my car. When I went back to DC earlier this year, I found an even better bumper sticker, a black sticker with green writing on it, the “O” in Obama was made from a peace sign. The same peace sign I grew up with back in the sixties. I loved that bumper sticker from the second I saw it and it was the last one there! I would have bought more of them but I couldn’t, being it was the last one there. So I took it home and replaced the boring old Make History sticker with the cool Peace sign sticker.

But then, someone stole it.

My car had occasion to visit the great state of Tennessee without me (I loaned it to my kid) and it was there, in Tennessee, where the bumper sticker came up missing. Now my son fancies himself a rabid Republican. His dad and I have tried to figure out where we went wrong but we couldn’t quite crack that mystery. I mean, I was a welfare mother when he was only a few months old, struggling to make it in a “rich man’s world.” I was a child of the sixties before that, all about free love and peace and rock and roll and all that crap. I love animals and the environment and give to all the right causes. We try to do the right thing by our fellow man. Yet still, we raised a kid who thinks Bush is a hero. I know, I know, I don’t get it either, but here we are. Someone once asked me what the difference between a Republican and a Democrat was, and how you could tell which one you were. I replied “Let’s say we’re all at an Easter egg hunt. The Republicans will take all the eggs they can find, and when their baskets are full and eggs are spilling out, they will go home. A Democrat will fill his basket as best he can (what with all those Republicans running about) and then, when his basket is full, he will stay and try to help the other participants fill their baskets as well.”

I thought it was a pretty good explanation. What I can’t figure out is why my son would rather go home with his eggs than help others get theirs. In real life, he’s the first one to step up and help someone in trouble, but I don’t think he truly understands what’s at stake with the elections, and how Bush is guilty of murdering over 3,000 people in a trumped-up war…..but I digress. I only note it here because it crossed my mind that, well, maybe HE took my bumper sticker off my car. But I asked him, and he said no, and that’s good enough for me.

But back to my story. I have already written about how much I love my Jeep, and how others comment on how they, too, have always wanted a Jeep. But what I didn’t make so clear is that my Jeep is just so… well….me. It looks like a car I would drive, and all the bling on it is all about my personality.

At my age, I think I have earned the privilege of customizing my car and using it to make a statement about who I am. After all, the days of driving the Mommy Car are long over, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t tag along with a man (Daddy, Hubby) as HE picked out my car. Nope. I did this all on my own. I picked out the make, model, year and color. And I bought the car of my dreams.

Then, I put an Irish flag license tag on the front, framed in an “I love my rescued retired greyhound” chrome-plated plate holder. I dangled a dream catcher on the rearview mirror, the same handmade one I bought during a visit at a Cherokee Indian reservation. Interwoven in the Dream Catcher is a miniature rosary that was made in a tiny Mexican village and brought back by the nun who visits them as a missionary. I have a “woof” oval decal on the window, and a little ball with paw prints all over it atop the antennae.

And, I had an Obama bumper sticker on the bumper.

In other words, the car was all mine. It is possibly the only thing, other than my books, that is truly mine. So the taking of my bumper sticker wasn’t just an act of petty thievery or criminal mischief, it was more than that. It was, here again, someone elses’ will being imposed upon my own, something that I thought I was way past.

And I’m sorry that someone is so angry, so threatened, so ignorant that they think they can stop the power of the first amendment by stealing a bumper sticker. I hope that whomever did it has the courage of his convictions. Despite all of it, I hope that the person who did this doesn’t stay home in November. I hope that this person will go out and vote. Because simply stealing a bumper sticker does not an activist make. Voting gives voice.

And if that voice is for McCain, well, I guess that’s better than no voice at all.
Bye Ce.