Bumper Stickers

Written by Connie Cavanaugh

Americans love bumper stickers. Canadians do, too; but having lived in both countries, my humble estimation is that Americans are more apt to attach something significant to their cars. Bumpers are often an extension of the driver in which political, personal, and religious affiliations are boldly stated. 

We northerners are less prone to this type of proclamation. Culturally, Canadians tend to be less willing to discuss personal matters with strangers, especially politics or religion.

Or maybe we take stickers too seriously. If I brashly announce I’m “truckin’ for Jesus” on my bumper, I won’t be able to push the speed limit or run yellow lights or double park. I’m speaking hypothetically, of course, not from personal experience. 

Perhaps that explains my dismay when I discovered my daughter had attached a fish and a slogan to the rear of one of our cars. After spending six weeks in Tennessee, she had fallen in love with bumper stickers and decided we needed some.

My husband and I stood side by side, arms crossed, chewing the insides of our cheeks in agitation as we stared at the new additions our daughter so proudly hauled us out to the garage to see. “Can you get that stuff off without wrecking the paint?” I muttered out of the side of my mouth to my husband. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I guess we’ll just have to drive the other car from now on,” he added.

“So what do you think?” our daughter asked excitedly as she polished the little fish with the sleeve of her shirt and stepped aside so we could read the slogan in huge bright letters next to it. “Everybody had these in Tennessee,” she said. “I just had to get some! Aren’t they great?”

“Oh, yes, they’re great,” we mumbled in unison.

Well, God must have a sense of humor because the car that now declares to the world our faith statement happens to be a lemon. Since buying this “gently used” car six months ago, we have replaced the alternator, the battery, the fuel pump, the glow plug fuse, the fan, the regulator, the diesel water trap, the valve cover gasket, the radiator, and, believe it or not, the motor. We figured there was nothing left to go wrong. Everything was in mint condition, my husband assured me as he gave the car a once-over the night before our daughters planned to use it for a road trip.

Excitement and busy schedules meant the girls were seriously sleep-deprived as they embarked on what should have been a six-hour journey. Four hours into the trip and 20 minutes from the nearest town, they had a blowout. They pulled out their cell phone and called for help. After a long wait, a tow truck arrived, and the driver tried to change their tire. Unfortunately, the hubcaps had anti-theft locks on them, and he couldn’t figure out how to get them off. The girls crowded into the cab of the truck with the driver, who towed the car to town. Three hours at the garage resulted in this diagnosis: “We don’t carry that size tire in this town.” 

Both girls burst into tears. After a few phone calls the relieved mechanic announced a garage across town might have tires close to that size.

The girls crawled back into the cab of the tow truck with the driver as he backed up and hooked on to the rear of the car once again. They had driven only two blocks when our oldest daughter glanced into the rearview mirror, and dead center was the large-as-life declaration she had confidently plastered on the bumper weeks earlier. She nudged her sister, who looked up and read, “Why worry? God is in control.”

“Ya think?” asked the younger sister, as a smile slowly crossed her lips. “Even when it doesn’t feel like it,” the senior sis replied with a confidence she didn’t feel, and they shared their first laugh of the day.

Connie Cavanaugh is a Christian writer and speaker who is serious about her faith, but not so serious about herself. Thanks to her husband and three children, family life in the Canadian Rockies offers up plenty of material for stories.

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