Getting your message across

Once upon a time, there was a thing called a bumper sticker. These are still sold in many venues, of course, but in the old days, people would actually affix these to their automobiles--and not just in election years.
It was, in fact, the preferred means of amusing, insulting, confusing, threatening, and/or lecturing your fellow drivers about whatever you thought was important at the time.

While careful watching will uncover traditionalists who still imperil their paint jobs with adhesives, modern man has devised other ways to execute drive-by shooting-off-of-the-mouth. (Technically, it's the shooting off of a hired mouth, but, nevertheless...)

One way is, of course, The Fish.

Popular on expensive vehicles like those driven by Christ, these warn one and all that the driver considers himself a Christian and can't bear that you don't know it. Its counter-talisman is a fish with legs or other variations thereof, which warn one and all that the driver has had enough of people with fish on their cars.

I am lucky enough (for a given value of "lucky") to live in Indiana, where the state license plates bear the legend 'In God We Trust' which gives Christians the option of annoying passerby at state expense. While some have said publicly that they chose these plates specifically to annoy nonchristians, others presumably find the motto that appears on our money to be more in tune to their personal religion. Then, of course, some people just don't care. I couldn't tell you what color my license plates are, for instance. Anyway, they are for other drivers to notice and react to.

In the last decade or so, however, the primary means of extravehicular communication with strangers (that does not involve firearms) is the magnet. Not just any magnet, but the ribbon magnet.

That is, a magnet shaped vaguely like a two-dimensional ribbon would look if wrapped around something.

For a certain period, the lack of such a magnet on one's vehicle was like driving down the road shouting "Death to America!"

I never had one, myself, since I already drove a van for the "Osama's Death To America Delivery Company", and it would have been pointless.

Okay, that's an exaggeration.

And in fact, the previous driver had epoxied some sort of jingoistic political statement on the rear bumper of the truck that I couldn't remove, so it never came up.

But the point of all this patriotic ribbon fervor was not about how a simple signalling method immortalized by a pop song in the 70's came to be the ultimate symbol of anonymous, intrusive concern. Although that would make--and possibly already has made--a compelling doctoral thesis for someone.

It's about how people, being people, wanted to get in on the act.

Ribbon magnets proliferated.

They were quickly everywhere, promoting whatever cause wanted promoting, morphing into selling tools, showing up in a rainbow of colors quickly faded by weather and adhering to every potential metal surface in millions of vehicles.

They quickly became invisible, as well as passe.

It may be that the ribbon magnet tidal wave has swept back into the ocean of kitsch. I couldn't say. It takes an effort even to see them now.

But the reason all this came up, besides my long-winded determination to reactivate this blog, is the one I did notice yesterday.

It was a ribbon magnet. It was yellow.

It said "Nursing Awareness."

Nursing Awareness?

A quick Googling reveals that this is a campaign to make people aware of the role of registered nurses in...well, nursing, apparently.

"We hope to bring a new level of awareness of what registered nurses do and who registered nurses are,"

( http://www.nurseuniverse.com/Nursing-Job/2457.html )

I don't know what to do with that.

Is there somewhere, someone who, when informed that a person is employed as a nurse, that thinks they run florist shops or dairy farms?

Clearly, there's money to be made promoting awareness of things people already know. And ribbon magnets are a good buy, because, being invisible, they never go away.

The campaign was in May of 2005, for instance, and two and a half years later is still keeping us aware.

Assuming you were to notice it.

Well, it doesn't make the world a worse place, I guess. It's a sort of visual litter, but it least it travels with the person who threw it out.

One day, I'm going to a grocery store parking lot and switch magnets around on peoples' cars.

Steve "Think anyone would notice?" James