By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

While I’m not sure of the exact date of the invention of the bumper sticker, it had to have come sometime after 1927 when the Ford Model A became the first horseless carriage to have bumpers. Pre-’27, I guess folks might have been slapping their “South of the Salt Line” stickers on their horses’ butts, but there is not any record of it. The first commercial bumper stickers emerged at the end of World War II and I’m sure had slogans like “Allied Powers – Defending World Champs.” Bumper stickers have evolved and blossomed since the 1940s and were a part of my life before I even had a bumper to stick them on.

My early love affair with the bumper sticker was realized with the bumper surrogate, a Trapper Keeper notebook. Early favorites were radio station stickers; hmmm, possibly a little foreshadowing there. I made sure my radio station allegiances were obvious to everyone within a desk or two of me in every class of the day. My green Trapper Keeper was one of my first soapboxes, giving me a place to demonstrate what I thought was cool at the time.

When the notebook turned into a bigger billboard in the shape of a slightly beat up, gray and black, single cab, maroon vinyl bench seat, pick-up truck, my palette and imagination grew as well. Now not only did I have a bigger soapbox for my ideas, but this soapbox was mobile and moved around town “enlightening” all of Mobile and some of the Eastern Shore to what I thought was cool.

I first realized I had a bumper sticker fetish when I actually started accumulating stickers to go on my next vehicle well before I ever got said vehicle.

With all this being said you could reckon I’m pretty friendly to others in our city, state and country that sticker-up their cars and trucks. I’m currently running six stickers on the back of my truck, championing everything from turkeys to the Constitution. I realize this may seem as ridiculous to some people as their stickers seem to me, so I am very laissez-faire about judging other peoples’ bumper sticker espoused beliefs, even the ones promoting Dukakis/Bentsen ‘88. My patronage can only go so far though, and there are a few bumper banners I just can’t defend.

My limits have been realized with two stickers in particular, they are the, “There’s No Excuse for Domestic Violence” and “I Love My Wife” stickers and a possible late addition third place, all stickers with a picture of Calvin doing anything on them. Since I don’t need to preach to you why the Calvin stickers are the work of the devil, let us move to other two stickers that identify the men driving the accompanying vehicles as either total wusses or just plain guilty.

Every time I see the “There’s No Excuse for Domestic Violence” sticker I immediately think, “Hey, that guy beats his wife or at least has in the past.” That particular bumper sticker has to be the Scarlet Letter for abusers, because who else would put it on their car? The statement is so obvious to those of us not inclined to roughing up the Mrs. that we wouldn’t figure it was a message that needed to be taught all around town. There is not a big market out there for bumper stickers reading “Don’t Run Over Puppies” now is there? Why, because most folks agree on the subject and not running over puppies doesn’t seem to be a subject of contentious debate in this country.

Color me cynical, but I don’t think some hot-head spouse abuser out there is going to see the “There’s No Excuse for Domestic Violence” slogan and then change his ways. I think those people with that particular sticker on their vehicle are current or reformed spouse abusers, or they have friends with a brutal sense of humor that put the sticker on the person’s car while they weren’t looking.

The Gemini to the domestic violence sticker is the “I Love My Wife” sticker. This sticker is for guys, while not abusers, who have screwed up somehow. This sticker is the ultimate bouquet of flowers for the man in the deep end of the trouble pool. I think the “I Love My Wife” sticker is probably part of the deal that lets guys who were caught in a compromising position with the secretary to remain married and living in the house. Just like the domestic violence sticker, when I see a guy driving a car with the “I Love My Wife” sticker on it; I immediately want to ask him, what or whom did you get caught doing?

Having to put a sticker like that in with the rest of my bumper stickers, while not on the top, is definitely on my list of reasons not to wander from the home fires of casa Sullivan. Maybe a sticker that reads “I Love Your Wife” might be the antidote to this prison stripe of a sticker, and keep the tailgaters guessing about what this guy is up to, of course that would lead someone to create a sticker that reads “There Are Very Few Excuses for Domestic Violence,” and we don’t want to encourage that.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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