I miss you, bumper and sticker. Geeze, I miss that whole car.

I was driving one day and I saw a bumper sticker. It was white, with a thick, black border. The capital letters inside the oval said "READ." I laughed, riotously, for a few minutes. Then I thought that this person should be run off the road for having such a ridiculous bumper sticker. What they have done is take a popular bumper sticker format (made popular by tourist area Outer Banks, North Carolina, which went by OBX), and apply it to a suggestion to spread intellect. This means that in their superior intellect, they still made the poor decision to use a bumper sticker, and one with a stupid message, at that. It was at this point that I realized they were not to blame. Someone made that bumper sticker, and that is who should pay.

The bumper sticker is a big thing. Unless you're Chris Paone, then you'll probably have your car for a long time (though I think he's sticking with his current one for a while). Whatever you are going to put on your car says something about you, and not just frivolously, like an emo girl who wore a Backstreet Boys shirt a few years ago. Your car will last through phases, changing musical tastes, and most pop culture references.

If you want a shorter term commitment than a bumper sticker, then you get a shirt or a patch, if kids still do that. These pieces help you demonstrate love for an entity, but when you change your mind you can give the shirt to charity, where people don't care who's on the shirt, as long as they're not naked anymore. Surely you can give to them, right? 'Tis the season and all.

Posters are also a great way to demonstrate short-term affection. During college I went home and saw a Midtown poster on my wall. I didn't remember even liking Midtown. I looked around to find the Barenaked Ladies and a poster for Independence Day. They have fond memories from years ago, but they couldn't hold a flame to their company, Don Corleone looking down upon my bed, and Billy Joel looking slightly to the left from his 2001 tour. Then I realized that all the posters that weren't up to snuff really just covered cosmetic wall problems, so I left them.

That was quite an aside, but to bring us back to the point at hand, we'll transition by reminding you about those key chains with witticisms from back in the days of grade school. Those ones that always seemed somewhat adult, because we knew what they meant, but we had no idea how applicable they would be as life went on. Sayings like " I need more money, power, and less SHIT from you people," or "I suffer from PMS... Putting up with Men's Shit," were so appealing because someone managed to condense a funny saying on one tiny bit of plastic. Again, you can always throw out a key chain.

"If you don't like my driving, then get off the sidewalk!" If you put that on your car, you're making yourself into that terrible person at the office who tells lame jokes and goes home to a family that you just imagine grudgingly loving him/her. You can still be 17 when you put that sticker on, but you're flipping your own tarot cards, buddy, and your future's set. "I'm not as think as you drunk I am," that is a shirt saying. You don't put that on a car, because drunk driving makes no one laugh. Enough people still tragically die from drunk driving that you can't joke about it yet. Wait until the numbers get lower, then maybe you can bring it out. For now, get this sticker off the market. "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it." Come ON! The list could go on forever.

I suggest a real, volunteer-based committee that would meet to evaluate, discuss, pass, and/or reject all bumper stickers in America today. These would be saying-based stickers. Dave Matthews Band can still have bumper stickers, but the kid who realizes, four years later, that the drummer is the only reason to listen to the whole band, and even then, Dave's shitting the whole mess up with his clinched-throat, incoherent vocals, just has to deal with it being on his/her car. Saying-based bumper stickers will be evaluated by a group of individuals that will be a grand committee, with regional sub-committees. You need sub-committees to reduce the work load for the grand committee, duh.

This group can't just be some people off the street though. It's important for me to explain the roles of each individual in this group. Most importantly, there is no leader of the group.

The Academic: You need at least one academic to be on the board so that he/she can interpret/explain sophisticated jokes.

The Humorist: Someone who understands every type of humor and can determine whether a phrase can be considered funny or not. This would require someone very sophisticated when it comes to comedy.

The Conservative: To field traditional, wholesome materials, and refute any wildly liberal statements.

The Liberal: check and balances, everybody.

The Hip Grandmother: Does she get it? Her input is important, because often the old people are the ones riding you close enough to read your bumper stickers.

The Jerk: What negative responses does the bumper sticker bring out? If there are any that resemble escalating events (to shooting or following the driver to their destination to punch them)), then the committee may want to reject the sticker.

The Normal Guy/Gal: Will a 'normal' person get it? This person will determine the general population's response to the saying or sticker.

I think if these people were in power, then READ would have never gotten passed into existence. No humorist would say it's funny, no academic would claim it represented enough of a mission, and the jerk, in slighted misinterpretation would be driven to flip off the driver due to its scathing irony, "I read it, #$&@er!"

Think about it. We've all seen our fair share of really awful bumper stickers. Only when you truly love something or a saying really encompasses who you are, should you be able to slap it on your car. My car? I don't have any stickers on the new one, but my past stickers included "I hate everything" and "Picked last in gym," the latter being a cosmetic cover-up. All I'm saying is to think hard before you commit, because "Who let the dogs out?" can really evoke a violent response nowadays. The Baha Men had enough dignity to let it go. You should too.