So I was driving along the other day and found myself behind a car with one of those ubiquitous oval bumper stickers.  You've seen them, a white oval, typically containing 2 to 4 letters, these letters some kind of abbreviation or acronym for something important to the driver.

I hate these things.  My world is already full to the brim with annoying three-letter acronyms and other symbols, it seems pointless to slap a code on the back of your car which is likely uninterprettable to the average person.  Today I was behind "DOT"... whatever that means.

It is extremely rare that I am able to figure out what the oval means, and I usually drive alone so I have nobody to discuss it with.  Some aren't that hard: the green-and-white VT, that's vermont; 26.2 is for marathon runners; etc.  But most could mean anything at all.  DOT?  Department of Transportation?  Drinks Only Tequila?  Doubles-Only Tennis?  Drives Off Track?  Disciple of Terror?  Dumb Oval Totem?

The oval bumper sticker concept comes from Europe.  Originally the thing had a specific purpose, to show the country of origin.  If you were from, say, Italy, you could put an oval on the bumper of your car with an internationally recognized abbreviation for Italy.  Once here, the idea began to stretch and take on new meanings.  Why not state of origin--as in MA or TX?  Then popular vacation getaways started producing them (YNP for example, Yosemite National Park).  Then they started to reflect hobbies or other interests (GEO for geocaching, or 26.2 as mentioned above).  And now it has gotten to the point where you can order ovals that say anything at all, so you can have your own completely customized code on your bumper like say ULEV for Unbecoming Levity, or PDI for Plastered Dragon Inn.

But why bother if nobody is going to know what you mean?  I mean yesterday I was behind a car that had an oval on the back with a big D in it.  That's it, just a D.  If it could mean just about anything, it might as well mean nothing.  And since people can order them with anything they want printed on them, it's not like you can go online later and look them up to figure out what they mean, unless they are actually "Country of Origin" stickers, as originally intended.  Closest thing I found to a lookup list was this.  Interestingly they have DOT on this list, which they claim is a reference to Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon, but I don't like them.  If I was going to deface the back of my car, I'd order a series of custom stickers and place them in a line along the bumper like this: