Car decals represent personal lives

Published: Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 12:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 15, 2011 at 8:16 a.m.

There is yet another fad that has gripped the nation. It's not as sensational as social networking, but it's along the same lines.

Everywhere I look these days, everyone has some sort of sticker on the back windows of their car. Having a bumper sticker isn't new, but it's the personal nature of these decorations that strikes me as unusual.

I remember back when the "Baby On Board" signs that hung on the inside of the back window of your car were all the rage. This was the first time I remember that a kind of personal declaration about the people driving the car was made. It was to let other drivers know that the people in this car have a new baby, so drive carefully. The next progression was designs that were on the outside of the window.

All of a sudden, I noticed that everyone had these little white oval stickers with black letters on their cars. My neighbor had one on his truck that said OI, so I asked him what it meant. He told me that I stood for Oak Island because that is where he and his family always go when they go to the beach. It's like having a sticker for your favorite football team or university, but instead it's your favorite beach. My husband gave me a TI (Topsail Island) sticker for my own car because that is where we always go when we go to the beach, and he knows how much I love it there.

But it's not just for vacation spots. I've seen DTWN for Downtown Winston Salem, HR for High Rock Lake, GAP for Fancy Gap in the Mountains. Heck I've even seen BBQ in celebration of our local delicacy. I'm sure by now every city in the country has there own variation of this kind of sticker

The next kind of car decal I noticed was the personalized sayings that were not really stickers but more of letters cut out of sticker material. People were putting things on their cars like "In Memory Of .. " as memorials for loved ones who had died. It seemed an unusual thing to me because I kept wondering what would happen when the time came to sell that car? Would the owners take the sticker off and put it on their new car or would the new owner have to buy a car with a memorial on it for someone they had never met?

But the one type of decoration that has completely taken over is the stick figure families. If you see a minivan or a family type SUV, undoubtedly you will find the stick figure family representing the cheerleader daughter, the ball playing son plus mom and dad and let's not forget the stick figure Fido. One time I saw an older woman with a bumper sticker that said, "I love my grandchildren" and she had no less than 10 stick figure children covering her back window. I worried she may have risked being able to see clearly in her rear view window while driving in an over zealous declaration of love for her grandchildren.

This is when I started pondering on how personalized people have become in their car decorations. Just by looking at your car, I can tell that you have two daughters, a son and two cats. You like UNC, go to the Outer Banks for vacation and you have lost a loved one named Bob Smith on January 18, 2009. There are people who don't even put that much personal information on their Facebook page and yet we are driving around with an advertisement about our lives every day.

I guess there is no harm in it, and goodness knows people have been wearing T-shirts, hats and other forms of fan loyalty for years. Americans love to take every opportunity to let people know what kind of political affiliation they are, what kind of music they like or even to promote social or religious themes as a little demonstration of every citizens right to free speech. If you ever want to really think about the diversity of our country just simply check out the stickers on the cars travelling down I-85.

My only word of caution would be to please make sure to strategically place all of your car decorations. I really don't care how many dogs you have or whether you brake for yard sales, I just want to know if you can see out of your car when you're driving.



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