Speaking of Wee

  • by Drew

That last post about good ol’ Ron reminded me of something I saw in a department store recently. I was somewhere between the fat burners and the shotgun shells when I came across some gear to trick out your automobile. There were air fresheners and steering wheel covers and license plate holders and lots of stickers. Mostly Calvin stickers.

Wait, I should be more specific – mostly Calvin urinating stickers. Now I know I’ve covered this topic in the past, so I won’t spend too much time here. Suffice it to say there are many options for people who want to have Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) peeing on something.

This display rack, however, was particularly interesting. It was a spinning display with three rows of pegs, about 6 high. So, on each of the 4 sides of the display, there were 18 different stickers displayed. Sure, there were doubles, a lot of Calvin doubles. Actually, there were at least 8 classic Calvin urinating stickers on each side of the display. There were also a few with Calvin peeing on NASCAR numbers and such, but the classic Calvin just peeing was most popular.

Here’s the funny part, though. On one side, in the leftmost row, third down, was a sticker of the face of Jesus. It was the standard Caucasian Jesus with trimmed beard and crown of thorns. Of course, right above Jesus was…you guessed it, Calvin peeing. And yes, it did look like Calvin was aiming for his downstairs neighbor. I couldn’t help wondering if this was done intentionally or not, but…I mean, if you were the guy setting up the display, how could you miss it?

In Memoriam…

  • by Drew

Driving home not long ago I was behind a dark blue pickup truck. It was old. Not really old, maybe, but at least 5 or 6 years old. And it was dented and scratched. In a few places the scratches were deep enough to have started rusting through. It wasn’t exactly a piece of crap or particularly redneck-mobile looking yet, but it also wasn’t the nicest truck.

I spend so much time describing the general condition of the vehicle because of the vinyl sticker thing on the back. Where some people have the Calvin urinating on something/somebody/some number or maybe one of those die-cut 9/11 remembrance things, this guy had a phrase.

In Memory of Ron.

Yes, this guy apparently decided to dedicate his truck to his deceased friend/uncle/family member…or somebody named Ron, anyway. I assume it was a close relation since he chose the personal Ron over the formal Ronald. But really, is this the way to go? Some people get fancy headstones. Some people get park benches or paver brick dedication. Some people even get buildings or scholarships funded in their name. But a pickup truck? What an honor.

Then again, I’ve seen more than one commemorative t-shirt. I’ve seen an embroidered denim jacket. I’ve even seen a handwritten cardboard display. So maybe dedicating your ride to your old buddy isn’t so weird after all.

At least it wasn’t a Hummer.

Gummy Joe’s Lady Friend

  • by Drew

Witnessed an interesting parking lot squabble. Apparently one person backing out of a space bumped or was bumped by someone else. Experience suggests that the person driving in the lane would be at fault, since I have frequently seen drivers doing 40 or 50 miles per hour up and down in the quest for an advantageous spot.

Here’s the scene: toothless woman with thinning but mid-back length grayish hair in well-rusted lime green Tracker yelling at white haired old lady in a metallic sand colored sedan of unknown make. It was a true meeting of the articulate minds. Like, a couple of social gals on their way to buy some philosophy books and chia seed and computer memory for their Macs suddenly embroiled in a little scuffle.

Actually, I felt kind of bad for the little old lady, who eventually drove away. There really was no damage to either vehicle, but I think ‘Toothless’ was going to try and make a run at some whiplash cash. The sort of sad thing is that Toothless and her passenger (I forgot to mention that there were two of these delightful specimens) called 911 and more or less claimed to be the victims of a hit and run. Now, I know that leaving the site of an accident is bad news, but, well…I hope the cops cut her some slack.

I was actually surprised they were able to write down her license plate number as she left. I mean, that’s letters and numbers.

Joy by the Flashing Lights

  • by Drew

Ah, to revel in the downfall of others…what a joy. And when that person is a real douche, seeing them go down is just plain righteous. I know they say revenge is a dish best served cold, but gloating over the misfortune of a jerk…it has to be tastiest when it is toasty enough to burn the roof of your mouth.

Why the celebration you ask? I was driving home from errands earlier and witnessed a particularly inventive bit of really dangerous bad driving. And I think it resonates so much with me because this is far form the first time I have witnessed it.

See, there’s a point in this one lane highway (speed limit 50) where another road intersects via an underpass. So the junction is accomplished with an on ramp. See, drivers can come off the other road and make almost a full circle to come onto an on ramp on the road in question, the road I was on. From my perspective, there is a right lane that appears for about 100 yards or so. Once in a while, someone merges onto the road I was on (a road I drive very frequently) by entering from the right lane. Traffic is not that bad and it’s usually an easy merge to juggle.

Now very occasionally you get someone who is so self-centered, so obnoxious, so reckless, or maybe just really late for their colon cleanse, and they decide that the person in front of them is going too slow. When they come to this stretch of right lane merge, they choose to slide into that merge lane and use it as a passing lane (a passing on the right lane, in fact) and speed past the person they are following. This will only work if there is noone actually using the merge lane as an entrance lane to merge from, of course.

Today, not for the first time, the driver directly in front of me chose to pull the mega reckless douche move and pass on the right when we got to the merge. It seemed to be a pretty unnecessary act of aggression because the car s/he wished to pass was going at least 55. Once in a while we get old-timers or out of state drivers doing 35 and it is frustrating. Of course, in the defense of the elderly, infirm, and weary (or should it be wary) travellers, the road has very little speed signage.

As I said, though, this was not the case. This guy was just being a jerk. But guess what…as s/he made the move, there was actually a cop on the other side of the road. And though I was about to make a disparaging remark about the cops never doing anything, I was stunned to guilty silence when the cop actually yoinked into a driveway, did a fast U-turn and came back after the guy.

This driver was so busted that s/he actually pulled over before the cop even got fully turned around with his lights flashing. It was awesome. You ever watch a guy blow by doing like 90 in a 45 and then half a mile later there’s a cop on the side of the road and you wonder what the hell they’re doing and why they missed the speeder? You know how you have that desire to see the jerk pulled over? Do you, like me, fantasize about honking and waving as you drive by and that jerk is in full shame, pulled over, maybe even getting cuffed against the hood?

This was sort of a fulfillment of the dream. So righteous.

Tiny tear

  • by Drew

I saw an interesting plate on the back of a Hummer today.

 IIRUINII

I suppose it could be read as 2-Ruin-2, but I think this was a visual play, like the two capital I’s were supposed to look like columns. Columns flanking a ruin, like this is the vehicle of an archaeologist with a sense of humor. And not a teaching archaeologist or anything like that because what teach would have the bucks to buy, trick out and keep scrupulously detailed this behemoth.

 I mean, maybe a celebrity archaeologist like Indiana Jones might get tired of looking for Ferrari parts and buy American, but…I don’t know, I think Indy would be more of a hybrid kind of a guy. He’d look at the 8-mile-to-a-gallon wonder and say something like technology like this belongs in a museum. He always says stuff like that.

There is a hint of irony here, though. I mean, not to be all tree-huggy or anything, but one (of the many) thing that is destroying our planet is carbon emissions from our ridiculous reliance on fossil fuels. So, in a sense, the completely unnecessary guzzler from hell is in some way responsible for our, well, ruin.

Somewhere a Native American dude is crying. Can you see it?

Name Change

  • by Drew

I was coming home from work the other day and got behind a ginormous SUV with a number of bumper stickers. There was an NRA sticker, a ‘freedom isn’t free’ sticker and an election sticker. It was for a small, local election in a small nowhere town. Town clerk or chief ball washer or executive director of austin weight loss or something else relatively part time and tiny. The funny part was that the person up for the job chose a bumper sticker style that made all text but his last name tiny (thus my inability to remember any important detail other than last name. But oh, what a last name it was.

Douchkoff – which to me can be pronounced only one way: Douche-Cough.

Borrowing from an old grade school joke I believe it is the sound of vinegar and water crashing together with H1N1. Bacon and balsamic. Poetry. Pure poetry.

Seriously, how did this guy survive grammar school with enough self esteem to eventually run for public office, no matter how insubstantial that office might, in reality, be. Isn’t this someone who really should have considered a legal name change. And I don’t mean that he should have mulled it over casually. He should have seriously considered changing his name. Then he should have contacted a lawyer and got the ball rolling.

He could be a Smith or a Jones or even an Enemasneeze. Why not?

Bang Bang

  • by Drew

I saw an interesting bumper sticker the other day: BEAR ARMS OR WEAR CHAINS

I thought that was an interesting choice, at least if I’m reading it correctly. And if I’m reading it correctly, these are the two options available to you:

1. Carry a weapon, probably a firearm, or your person at all times.
2. You will be enslaved.

Now, I have to assume that if someone is going to enslave me for not carrying a gun, they, themselves are probably carrying guns with which to enslave me, so… wouldn’t a better policy be DON’T BEAR ARMS AND YOU WON’T WEAR CHAINS. 

OK, I see the problem there. This guy is clearly paranoid or preying on the paranoia of people stuck in traffic behind him. Since you don’t know what nuts out there are carrying guns, you don’t know which nut is going to try to enslave you, so you should carry a gun just in case you need it…for something. For protection, right? So when one of those nasty gun-wielding maniacs seeking to enslave you comes out of the woodwork, you can open a can of whoop on their unsuspecting ass. Right?

Maybe it’s just peer pressure. Maybe during the light of day, the choice presented by this bumper sticker is a little…stark, but think about where he got that bumper sticker. In some wood paneled basement on a friday night, surrounded by greasy men with beer guts and NRA ball caps and salt and pepper stubble on their chins. Upstairs the wives are looking for deals on Ft Lauderdale or Orlando or Destin hotels. Somewhere around the time the corn whiskey replaces the Coors, someone says, “hey fellas, wait till you hear about this bumper sticker I saw.”

OK, maybe I sound like one of those bleeding heart liberals who hates guns and wants to take them away from good, wholesome, down to earth Americans that just feel an automatic weapon is the only way to protect their 4 acres of farmland from the socialist revolution. Fair enough. But you are jumping to conclusions. I actually do not hate guns. I believe it is, in fact, the right of all Americans to own firearms. I think the bearing part should be reserved for times of war or military action or when that American feels legitimately threatened. (For the record, as moving into a duplex three towns away does not constitute such a legitimate threat in my opinion, but that is not the current issue.) 

Anyway, maybe I’m going through this mental exercise for nothing. Maybe I’ve read it all wrong. Maybe it was a typo and the guy is actually into 80s heavy metal music. Maybe the expressed sentiment was Bare arms or wear chains. Like, either go sleeveless and show your flesh or wrap it in links of shiny metal. Yeah, I bet that’s it because he seemed like such a nice man. At least he did from two car lengths behind and one lane over. Real real nice.

Steering Wheel Mounted Response System

  • by Drew

That’s right, I want a steering wheel mounted response system. I have been thinking about it for years, and auto accessories have come a long way. Satellite radio, lo-jack, entertainment systems, GPS, and myriad other bells and whistles are available on today’s new automobiles. Why can’t we have a steering wheel mounted response system.

Oh, what is a steering wheel mounted response system you ask? Simple. In place of your standard horn, you would have a keypad installed that features a selections of words that could easily be combined to form simple sentences. And while a whole load of expletives would be funny, it would surely not work.

In fact, believe it or not, I originally thought of this as a way to apologize to other drivers when you make a mistake. I complain about other drivers making all kinds of intentional obnoxious moves to better their traffic position by a car length or two, but once in a while I get myself into a situation where I’ve driven up in line only to discover I’m in a turn only lane…and I don’t want to turn. So I end up cutting into the correct line of traffic having inadvertently cut way ahead of lots of drivers who were doing the right thing. It may appear that I’ve done this on purpose when in fact it was an accident, but what can I do or say to apologize to my fellow motorists?

But if I had a steering wheel mounted response system I could simply press the “sorry” button on my keypad and a non-gender specific, non-race specific, non-threatening voice could chime out from the inner workings of my vehicle. Instead of a beep beep or honk honk, a simple kind word to let the other drivers know that I made a mistake and appreciate their understanding.

…and what a happier world this could be…

The Dotted Line

  • by Drew

Hey, I’ve noticed a new trend in douche bag driving this past week. On at least a dozen occasions since last Sunday I have seen people passing in extreme traffic over a dotted yellow line. When I say extreme traffic I mean they are not passing one or two cars and then racing off on their merry way, but rather they are in a huge line of traffic, do the fast acceleration and zip around one car and then continue in the lane of traffic.

The other morning I watched some jack off in a beamer spend ten minutes zipping around cars and nearly causing accidents over the course of about 5 slow miles. In that time he advanced approximately 5 car lengths. So, he was massively aggressive, irritating at least half a dozen drivers, cause several people to lay on their horns and nearly caused one (and arguably as many as three accidents – all avoided by other drivers slamming on brakes and/or taking evasive action) and he advanced his situation by less than 100 feet.

In all seriousness, shouldn’t I be allowed to pull him out of his car and slam his head on the hood? Just once or twice? Forget all this arguing about the economy and health care and blah blah blah. I need a law now that lets me carry a baseball bat in my car to dispense some modicum of justice on the aggressive imbecile in the overpriced import. Please congress, make me that law!

Same day, coming home from work, I watched two dudes, one in a little hatchback followed by a dude in a massive electrician truck with a cherry picker (like this) do the fast traffic pass over the dotted line. I mean, the little hatchback kind of made sense, but the big truck? Dude, what are you thinking? This stuff is starting to really freak me out, like I need quotes on term life insurance from wholesale insurance providers. You know, just in case… SQUEAL… BANG… CRASH!

And there were so many other examples since the weekend. It seems every time I’ve hit the road in the last few days I’ve watched some schmuck pull one of these douche moves. Keep crossing the dotted lane dudes and we’ll be connecting those dots…in blood.

I was going for a Driver’s Ed 5 hour course Blood Flows Red on the Highway vibe there. Did I get it? At least a little?

The Mercy Seat

  • by Drew

I was getting on the Taconic yesterday afternoon, on one of those long runway entrances that plops you in the right lane just past a right lane exit. It is an exit where many people get off, so it is generally pretty easy to get onto the highway because the people driving past the exit all move into the left lane. And 99% of the time they stay in the left lane well beyond the entrance. Of course, once in a while you get a less-than-conscientious driver traveling in the left lane when there are no people in the right lane getting off or just driving slow, and this less-than-conscientious person in the left lane decides to move to the right lane for no obvious reason. And on days like this, that person in the left lane times their journey to the right lane such that they arrive in the right lane just where I, the schmuck trying to get on the highway, am going to merge in off the entrance ramp. I really hate when that happens, especially when the less-than-conscientious left-to-right lane driver doesn’t even use their blinker.

But here’s the funny part, the woman yesterday (with whom I had this misfortune to share the road for the next 20 minutes as she increased and decreased her speed and changed lanes schizophrenically) had a vanity plate. Want to know what it was?

HAVMERCY

Hmmmm. Isn’t that ironic?

Or maybe it’s not, ever since that song I’m never totally sure what is ironic, what is coincidence, and what is just crappy luck.

I know I kvetch about this a lot. I could use a couple terabytes of online storage to document all of my tales of driving woe, but…man…why? Why can’t we actually…duh…have mercy on our fellow drivers and not make random, unannounced lane changes that could easily end in a deadly fiery crash?

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.