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raleigh free press
obx/omg
Published Oct 16, 2007Views: 116
Hello again friends. This time out, I have a brief comment on an issue not at all related to education, schools, or why a certain commissioner whose name rhymes with “surly” (coincidence? Nay.) needs a crème pie in his grille. Nay, my comments this evening are in an automotive aesthetic vein.
I just have to vent for a bit on the gross profusion of black and white oval stickers on motor vehicles in Wake County. You’ve been to the Outer Banks. We get it. How much cache does that really have when you live in Raleigh? It’s not like you live in Idaho or Jakarta, et cetera. I don’t know; maybe people in those places have “SPUD” and “INDO” on their cars. I doubt it.
Also, it’s not just the OBX that chaps my hide. It’s making every possible geographic location, airport code, school (any level, any affiliation, any place), or communicable disease into a pithy oval sticker. I’d like to think that my fellow Wake Countians (we’ve got to come up with some smoother nomenclature than that, by the way…) have a bit more originality than the unintentionally ironic display of finding something else to redact into 3-4 letters in an oval. Places you’ve been? Do something useful, if you must display on your motor vehicle: how about a map of those places in a rear window sticker? If you’re going to advertise your travels, at least help teach the rest of us learn some geography (since they can’t do it in middle school any more…sorry, an ed. comment) while we’re sitting at the Glenwood/Peace intersection for half an hour…”oh, that’s where Kentucky is!” I won’t hold my breath.
The fact that these decals most usually are affixed to vehicles somewhere close to the size of Qatar (which is also, coincidentally, the gross national petroleum output it takes to power such a vehicle) only exacerbates my irritation. If your car is big enough to be an Outer Bank, shouldn’t that suffice as your vehicular expression without an inane sticker?
I really think there are a few bucks to be made in producing similar, but uber-mocking, black and white stickers with the word “OVAL” in the middle. I’d buy that in a second and slap it next to my “Support your local Brewery” sticker on Debra, my Honda. If any of you decide to follow through on that, I just want credit given to me…in Chicago style formatting in a footnote on the sticker—no money, just that.
I swear that I could write a month worth of columns on inane things on cars around here, but I promised the boss that I’d be briefer than usual this time. For now, this one takes the cake; I’ll save the terrific kids and the God as co-pilot for another time. I will say this for the oval-decorators: at least they don’t pretend that slapping a sticker or magnet on their car somehow equates to support for the troops…the ovals might be superficial, but at least they’re not that fatuous.
Until next time…
Filed under: Personal
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October 16, 2007 10:06 p.m.
October 16, 2007 10:08 p.m.
GOLO member since September 9, 2007
October 16, 2007 11:45 p.m.
October 17, 2007 8:05 a.m.
- "My day is not complete until I have terrified a complete stranger" - "Buck Fush" - "God is too big to fit in one religion." - "Silence is golden, but duck tape is silver." - "I (heart) my weiner (dog)" - "I just realized, I don't care." - "If you are not outraged, YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!"
October 17, 2007 1:57 p.m.
I can't count the times I've wanted to print one with "WGAS" on it to place on my vehicles!
GOLO member since September 20, 2007
October 19, 2007 8:24 a.m.
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