The Things You Own End Up Owning You

I went to go rent some movies yesterday and on the way back was stuck behind a car with a curious series of bumper stickers. One, the flag of France, which is easily explained as francophilia. This is common in the wine-and-cheese lined streets of Clayton, so I didn't give it a second thought.



The second sticker said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Educate your children well." Ok, a nice thought that people who read will understand. Then again, like Braille on an ATM, is this really the best way to approach the problems of the American school system? The intended audience is probably poorer, and possibly can't read themselves, right? But, once again, I dismissed it, this time as oversimplification.

The third sticker is what blew my mind and made me question the driver's sanity, however. It read, in clear blue capital letters on white, "Do me a favor and steal this car." What???!?!? Look, I'm all for people ridding themselves of their possessions, but this doesn't even make sense. Maybe on an old POS or if were the cry for help of a bored housewife soccer mom... but this looked like a pretty solid car. However, my mom had one and it was buggy (get it haha), so I started to think maybe this individual had purchased my mom's old lemon. Even if that were the case, there are easier ways to get your car jacked in St. Louis. Trust me, I know neighborhoods where it won't last 5 minutes. I could even just drive it over the the car thieves that live behind me.



Still reeling from that, I was reading about the iPhone today. You've seen the commercials- it's another gizmo that does pretty much what everything else already out does. But I noticed something. People in this blog's comments were either entrenching themselves as Apple people or Microsoft people. Simply put, why? I was just recommended a book, The Rebel Sell, which claims that activism is being bottled and sold, doing harm to the causes they were supposed to help. But that isn't what happens with the old Mac v. PC argument, or a Nintendo v. Sony, and so on. People, when they fight on blogs, throw out sales figures and compete so as to show that they are COMPLETELY NORMAL. It's like a dick size contest where the winner is the person that is most average. Weird.



One last thing- nothing makes you want to own nothing like a trip to Southern Missouri for a float trip. Everything is in danger of being destroyed or stolen. When they are, you say to yourself "Hey, it was a free umbrella and a 99 cent bag of sunflower seeds, who cares?" Now, to get the VW lady to convince the gizmo owners to repent...