On Wednesday, Nov. 24, I was driving home, lost control of my car and slammed into a telephone pole. This is the fourth car that I have indirectly been involved in destroying, and to date, it has been the worst. I was certain of imminent death moments before I hit the pole, and cursed the trashcan some moron left in the middle of the road that I had to swerve to avoid hitting.
Distractions like this usually cause me to loose control of vehicles and subsequently wreck them, much to the frustration of passengers, bystanders and people in other cars. I admit it, I’m a horrible driver. So, people need to take into consideration easily distracted drivers like myself and do the world a favor by removing as many distractions as they can.
Let’s start by removing bumper stickers, which I always feel compelled to read and think about, only forgetting to put on my brakes.
On Saturday, Nov. 27, someone lent me their automobile and I nearly had to wreck that one as well. This was the result of a bumper sticker that stated: “Guns don’t kill people. Abortion clinics do.” I thought about it, forgot to break again and nearly drove off the road.
Let’s really think about this. Guns don’t kill people. Abortion clinics do. OK, I know this guy is pro-life and is using the bumper of his car as a forum for expressing his beliefs, but come on – guns don’t kill people? I think they do. In fact, there are about 50 handgun deaths each day in the U.S. So, guns may in fact be the cause of deaths. Doesn’t that just shock you right out of your pants?
Abortion clinics abort fetuses, they do not kill people. If you look up the word person in a dictionary it will tell you that a person is “the living body of a human,” while a fetus is “the unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate (see ‘The American Heritage Dictionary’).” Also, the word “abort” is quite different than the word “kill.” But maybe this guy’s bumper sticker was referring to the crazies who sit outside abortion clinics with guns and kill the doctors and patients.
But semantics aside, left-leaning bumper stickers are just as bad, distracting and of poor taste.
I used to repeatedly get stuck behind a Subaru-driving woman who plastered the back of her car with bumper stickers that would cause me to become so absorbed in their ridiculousness that I would forget to breathe or swallow.
Apparently she was “Doing her part to piss off the religious right” by claiming that “Babies [were] the other white meat.” This lady was plain nuts, and seemed to be doing her part to piss off other drivers as well.
Apparently, this woman felt that it was hilarious to claim that she ate babies, and not just any babies – only white ones. So, not only is she a cannibal, she is a discriminatory cannibal, which is the worst kind if you ask me.
Many times, when I nearly fender bend someone out of the craziness of their bumper stickers, I question why these people choose to wear their beliefs on their sleeves. I don’t see anything wrong with the simple pro-life or pro-choice stickers. They’re easy, but the others that I have to struggle to read out of pure boredom or curiosity have caused me to get into many near accidents.
Maybe one day, after I die as a result of distraction while driving, they will make a bumper sticker for me. So this is my living will: “Guns don’t kill people, neither do abortion clinics. Bumper stickers do. And somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot.”
Meredith B. Lindemon can be reached at Merbayne@aol.com.
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