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My car is like my home on wheels. It is as personalized as I can make it without it looking too cluttered or unpleasant. There are two sets of fuzzy dice and a sparkly blue and fuzzy steering wheel cover. But most importantly, there are bumper stickers. The bumper stickers that I have chosen to adorn my black Saturn are all reflections of me. There is the “Beware of the Piano Player” sticker that I found on eBay and paid too much for. This sticker has spurned a sort of trend among several friends of mine who found similar bumper stickers representing their respective instruments. The Saturn also sports a sticker advertising this magazine’s former incarnation, The Edward Website. (I decided long ago that I felt no shame in using my car for advertising, especially for such a good cause). To the right of it is a “Ron Jon’s” sticker that my aunt gave me when I visited her in Florida. I’ve only been to a Ron Jon’s once, and the only thing that I could afford was a little green light for my keychain; but the bumper sticker was bright and trendy, so it soon found itself on the back of my car. There is also the York College sticker that was generously provided for me upon my enrollment as a Freshman almost four years ago; and there is the newest acquisition, a sticker that shows a picture of an evil-looking cat in a dress holding what appears to be a human male by his ankle and dangling him over a toilet bowl. Beside the picture is the statement “Boys are fun”. For the record, I’m not generally known for suspending guys above toilet bowls, although I find it amusing nonetheless.

Maybe you didn’t want to know all about the stickers on my car. What I’m getting at is that they represent little parts of who I am. They make me feel like I’m not another cow in the herd, just one more car on the road. I can drive my car feeling like an individual.

Maybe you don’t care who I am and why I have those bumper stickers on my car. Maybe the guy in the huge old car (or “old boat” as we like to say in my family) behind me doesn’t care who I am. Maybe he hates York College with a passion because he wasn’t fortunate enough to be accepted into it. He has grown bitter in his years spent at another school because he knew in his heart of hearts that York College was the one for him. It would have made him successful, he would have gone places — he wouldn’t be stuck in his dead-end job, driving an early ’80s discarded police car to his fulltime hamburger-flipping job. Or maybe when he sees that York College sticker on my car, he becomes reinspired and decides to make his life right and try to get accepted again to pursue his dreams. Perhaps, instead, it reignites a bitter fury in him and he forms an online group to bring York College down, or, if nothing better, a group that just swaps stories about their unfortunate experiences with the school.

Or maybe something more interesting happens. Perhaps the man in the old boat behind me becomes so bitter and distracted by my York College bumper sticker, that he forgets what he is doing and rear ends me at a stop light. I have to get a new car, which I am a little sad about, as I am rather attached to my black Saturn. But the new car I get has power locks and doors, and a sunroof. It also has seats with heating capabilities. I find that my life becomes infinitely easier and much more comfortable. I have the bumper sticker to thank for it all.

Other people’s bumper stickers certainly intrigue me. For instance, the bumper sticker “I Screw Robots” gave me a good bit to think about and consider as I drove down Route 30 one morning. Why would anyone want to screw a robot? And how should one take the word “screw”? There are several ways to interpret it in such a context. Most importantly, I wonder what kind of person is driving the red Ford Escort in front of me with such a bumper sticker affixed to its shiny surface. After a bit of thought, I deduce that the person is most likely a young to middle-aged male who is probably single. He probably doesn’t shave too regularly, either. Although I never did get a good look at the person, I was pleased with what I could figure out about them from that seemingly insignificant bumper sticker. Maybe I was wrong; perhaps it was a married female or a senior citizen.

But it got me thinking, didn’t it? It distracted me from angry thoughts of traffic and homework. It gave that stranger behind the wheel an identity and provided me with some mild amusement during rush-hour traffic. In a society where you can productively live a whole day without human interaction, it’s nice to give some personality to that chunk of steel racing down the freeway at 70 miles an hour. It helps me see that there’s actually a real somebody behind that wheel — perhaps a worn out worker looking forward to a mug of dark-roasted cappuccino and a good book, just like me. They aren’t just another cow in the herd, and, thankfully, neither am I.

Illustration by Anatole Upart.

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