Road Signs of Decadence

Over the years I have developed an appreciation for things which . . . in the past I would have sworn off in the same breath as Satanism: mostly silly, and generally evil.

Things like classical art, the collected works of Dostoyevsky, and (shudder) country music, have all found a place, if not altogether warm then at least temperate, in my heart. But just like some wines, when aged, only get better, others turn to a vile and undrinkable vinegar that is better used for cleaning nuclear waste filters than cooking.

Like cars.

Some of the things that people do to cars simply baffles my artistic and transportation sensibilities. There seems to be no end to the market of silly things people can do to their vehicles. And by “people” I mostly mean about men, though there are women out there equally or more foolish then their automotive counterparts (see the bumper sticker section).

And you know who you are.

For example, changing the height of your vehicle. Now, living in the west, and having traversed some of the rockier parts of the Rocky Mountains, I can understand the desire to raise your truck to a height requiring oxygen tanks to assume the driver seat.

Such heights are dangerous, prompt vehicles to tip over and are excessive, but we’re men: we live for danger, tipping things over and general excess.

To most men, the idea of “less is more” never really made sense. How the hell can “less” be “more”. More is more, and less is less, and too much is never enough unless it’s “just right”.

So while raising a vehicle to Tower of Babel heights does make sense (and has a certain appeal) lowering a vehicle until it would high center on a Shankara Stone does not. Why, in the name of Shiva’s six arms, would you ever want skittles and M&M’s to become potential road hazards?

Of course, while I can understand the raising of a vehicle much more readily than lowering one, I can more sympathize with those in the later category since they generally seem to have better taste in paint jobs. The run-of-the-mill raised vehicle generally comes in two categories: primer grey and camouflage.

I said generally, so as the Yosemite Sam mud flaps advise: BACK OFF!

A wise foreign policy.

Camouflage, unless you’re fighting a jungle engagement against an alien predator who has personal stealth technology and a particle weapon that makes modern smart missles seem remedial, has never really made sense to me. I asked an intrepid soul why his sixteen-foot, rope-ladder accessible behemouth needed camouflage and he wisely pointed out, “So da deer don see mah comin’”. As any third-grader from Mrs. Momson’s class can tell you, most animals are color blind. Thus, you could paint your vehicle an assortment of Kool-Aid flavored colors and the deer would still hear your muffler from a mile off.

Most deer are smart like this. Most people aren’t.

The deer you see on the side of the road are the failed initiates of some deer gang. I just know that right after I miss some deer that has just bolted in front of me, he is being warmly congratulated by his fellows saying, “Alright, Spike’s in the club!”

The next time you see a camouflaged car, press hard on the accelerator, ram into its side, and when the officer asks you what happened, just say, “Man, I didn’t see him. He was camouflaged!”

But more so than the height and/or color of a vehicle that should bother you is the use of said vehicle as a billboard. As my sister-in-law wisely pointed out, “Bumper-stickers are a permanent statement of a temporary belief.” After all, what happens in another year and a half when (God willing) the U.S. has a “regime change”?

Do you still want to say “Dukakis/Bentsen in ‘88”? Shouldn’t you, as a Democratic supporter, be looking for a little stronger of a candidate sixteen years later?

But perhaps the most intelligence-insulting of these automobile-cum-discussion forum messages is the contribution of another 80s icon: Baby on Board. I for one was eminently grateful and to these signs. I quit plowing into any number of vehicles as soon as I saw the little yellow caution. It was a great relief to know that everyone else became much better drives because we all knew that in our general vicinity a baby was “Onboard”.

Now we just need a “Keanu on Board”.

That way we lay out marbles to high-center him, set for ramming speed, and plead ignorance that he was even there, since his camo-Hummer blended into the blacktop.

He was CAMO-FLAUGED!