Clever Bumper Stickers

My wife always gets on my case about slowing down for cyclists, but since I am one, I believe in karma--and in not getting flattened by a motorist. I figure if someone sees me seeing a cyclist, then I may exponentially help my own chances of being seen. That having been said, we always chuckle when we see the "Start Seeing Motorcycles" stickers.

We see them. On our recent cross-country drive, we saw them. We saw them without helmets in Idaho, Montana and Minnesota. (Didn't notice in North Dakota--we were too rapt in the flat nothingness.)

The bumper sticker that does stick out from our trek was found on one of those mobile houses classified as an RV. You know, the one that cost more than your house (and your neighbor's--combined)? It read:

"Zero to sixty in fifteen minutes."

I'm guessing his carbon footprint is bigger than mine. Chew on that, Al Gore. Hah!

Cross-Country Travel in a Van

Aaah, the priceless joys of endless miles of open road in front of you. I suppose that if there's one thing I enjoy about the mindless...er...endless driving is the wide variety of "interesting" things you find in the most mundane places. Take this photo at a McDonald's in Butte, Montana (home of Levi Leipheimer, but you didn't ask). What you can't see is that the word "convenience" has been replaced by the word "indoctrination." What you can see is that the "c" in "changing has been oh-so-cleverly removed to create a baby "hanging station." This is the logical progression from the road graffiti of my youth, where equally-clever folks would scratch out the "w" on the electric hand dryers to reveal "rub hands under arm air" just below where the "on" in "button" had been etched away to reveal the important instructions to "push butt" (again, to be executed before you rub hands under your arm air).

I'm not sure which is a sadder image: the hanging station itself or the thought that there I was on the throne snapping a picture of it with my cell phone.

Pathetic? Yes. I was snickering as I typed this post. I need to grow up, yet strangely, I refuse.