There used to be a time when I swore that if I saw another bumper sticker reading "My Child is an Honor Student at [fill-in-the-blank] Middle School," I would tear it right off the car.
Oh, what a difference three years makes.
Everyone still loves to ridicule the overzealous parents who think other people actually care about their sixth grader's GPA. But today, I pose this question: how about ridiculing people who think that strangers actually care about where they went on summer vacation?
You know what I'm talking about. ACK. OBX. V. I. JH. MV. VT. I'd continue, but my spell checker already hates me enough.
From what I see on the backs of cars, it seems the entire University has visited the Outer Banks at one time or another. Hey, maybe they have -- but why the heck do they have to make sure the person in the vehicle behind them knows that?
And do they actually think that cleverly writing "OBX" is so much cooler than sporting a big sticker that says "I am a proud vacationer at the Outer Banks"?
I have a theory that this whole sticker phenomenon was created by a young man named Tucker, just after he had returned from an ultra-swanky weekend in Nantucket.
Though he'd only spent two nights on the island -- at his cousin's friend's sister's house -- he wanted everyone to know about his sweet trip and decided that plastering this information on the back of his car would do the trick.
But he couldn't write "Nantucket," since, after all, he wanted to appear more in the Nantucket loop than your average Joe, who keeps getting it confused with Martha's Vineyard.
So he decided that the island's airport code, ACK, written in large black letters on an unassuming white circular background, would be oh-so-subtle.
For the average Joe who didn't have a clue what "ACK" meant, he would write "Nantucket" in small letters on the bottom just to clear things up.
Tucker pasted the sticker to the back of his 4Runner and soon everyone assumed he'd been summering in Nantucket his whole life. The rest was bumper sticker history.
So I made up that entire story. But I wouldn't be surprised in the least if part of it were true. I would love to know who spawned this phenomenon so I could repay them by burning a mountainous pile of OBX stickers in their front yard.
What really gets me is that these ubiquitous white stickers with their cutesy abbreviations exist for just about every major resort destination in America, and for most countries in Europe as well. It would be one thing if they were particular to one location, but when you can collect these things around the world (or just order them online if you're too cheap to spring for airfare), am I the only one to whom they lose their appeal?
Let's not forget another infamous sticker lurking in our own backyard: CHO. I'm not sure why soccer moms trekking down Ivy Road need to let us know we're in Charlottesville. Last time I checked, we'd all been there too.
We've always been a society obsessed with labels, which explains why we're willing to pay an extra $50 for a shirt with a small embroidered horse, or for sunglasses with the name of an Italian designer stamped on the sides in itty-bitty letters.
Heck, a $1.50-sticker is a lot cheaper than most status symbols. But I'm beginning to suspect that there's a good deal of sticker abuse lurking about the streets of America. I've decided that next time I spy a guilty vehicle, I'm going to do a little investigation that will go something like this:
Me: "Nice MV sticker. When was the last time you were at the Vineyard?"
Perpetrator: "Um, well
I haven't actually been there yet, but my cousins used to go all the time."
Or, perhaps it will be more like the following:
Me: "KBPT
that's Kennebunkport, right?"
Perpetrator: "Sure is."
Me: "Oh, so how long have you been going there?"
Perpetrator: "Well
I've never been there. But I voted for Bush!"
With the exponential rate at which this trend seems to be growing, I wouldn't be surprised if soon, all new cars start coming with pre-applied stickers. I can see it now, "Well, Mr. Jones, we have that model on the lot in black with an OBX sticker, but if you really want ACK, we're going to have to special-order it. Seems there's a waiting list."
Hopefully things will never get that bad. In the meantime, I propose a new version of the sticker to be flaunted proudly by people who feel the same as I do: IDCWYS (I Don't Care Where You Summer). Any takers?
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