I judge you by your bumper stickers...

I was driving behind a car with a 'coexist' sticker and a 'treehugging dirt worshiper' sticker and I thought to myself, "I might like to have coffee with this person." Then, it struck me. I judge most drivers by their bumper stickers. I think that might be a source of my road rage, because I do have a little bit of road rage, only expressed very eloquently. For example, if someone cuts me off on hwy 6, I say either in my head or outloud, "you clearly don't know your ass from your elbow. did your mother teach you proper anatomy or did you learn it from cinemax?"...

 Ok... so maybe my road rage isn't expressed in that way. That was me trying to make myself not sound as angry as I actually am when I have road rage. But, what is true is that whenever someone makes me angry on the road, I immediately justify their stupidity by what bumper stickers/license plates they have.

 I know, it's just as mean as racial profiling. It's even less predictable than that. I used to have a car that had a retired military license plate, but had every sticker from coexist to I love mountains to widespread panic to Sewanee to lazy magnolia beer. I had everyone on the road confused as hell. I'm pretty sure what would happen is that they'd see my bumper stickers and say, "this person is a bleeding liberal" as long as they were far away. Then, upon closer glance they'd see retired army plate and think, "maybe the military isn't all war-mongering jar heads." When finally they were passing me, I could even see their surprise and their relief/judging when they saw it was a 20 something woman wearing a leather safari hat with the windows down and a cigarette hanging from her left hand, blasting Arcade Fire or Joni Mitchell or Drake, depending on the mood.

 Did my retired army plate get me out of traffic tickets? Yes. Did my coexist sticker coupled with a military tag get me disdained looks from other cars with retired military tags? Yes. These things I can't help. Did my array of stickers serve as a way for anyone in the town of Oxford to know exactly where I was during the day? Absolutely. I frequently got text messages saying, "hey, I saw your car on the square, whatcha up to?" If I liked you, that was exciting because we could hang out. If I was lukewarm about you, I'd be stuck. Do I reply about exactly what I'm doing? Where is this person? Are they gonna hollar at me when I leave the door of Ajax? Then it'd be awkward that I didn't respond to the text when they see me on the square. How many people saw my car and thought to themselves, "there's blount." Kinda made me uncomfortable. I pride myself on my stealth-like behavior.

I drive a different car now, but I won't tell you what so you'll never know where I am. And that, ultimately, is the way to keep yourself from being judged by your car. Keep a car clean of bumper stickers and have just a plain old license plate.

You're welcome for all this wisdom on road rage/discrimination by bumper stickers/personal story told through bumper stickers, etc.