Rear Window Regrets: A Tale of Tacky Car Trends

Over the years, we’ve  seen a lot of tacky car trends come and go. You may be familiar with some of these, such as “Mr. Pick-Up Truck” with blue rubber testicles hanging from his trailer hitch and a My Son Beat Up Your Honor Student bumper sticker. Perhaps you’ve also seen “Too-Many-Support-Ribbons Man”, or the infamous “Double Flaggers” (guaranteed to be past retirement age).

An Adorable Cookie-Cutter Family

While these trend have come and gone, I present to you the epidemic of today: the rear window family decal. For those unfamiliar, this entails placing a stick figure decal for each member of the family, sometimes including pets, so that every person driving behind you now knows that you are a married couple with two sons, a daughter, and a pet golden retriever. Why is this necessary?

• Explanation A: Informative Purposes. So you desire random strangers to know this information? Now Mr. Pedophile is reading your rear windshield like a Chinese food menu. You might as well just sign your son up to be a choir boy while you are at it.
• Explanation B: Family Safety. Well, the 80s version of this, the Baby on Board sign, never made me pause to say “Oh wait, that car I was going to hit, I should reconsider because there may be a baby in there.” In fact, drivers may be more accident prone when analyzing your family tree from behind the steering wheel.
• Explanation C: You are a grizzled war veteran who has carried the tradition of marking your kills into the civilian world. Kudos to you, Sergeant Slaughter, and your accomplishment of having mowed down 3 little girls, 1 father, 2 cats, and a dog. Perhaps you should just invest in a cow-catcher.

As trends begin to fade out, however, they first become ironic. All of their deriders jump on board with parody items, such as the “I Support Single Moms” ribbon magnets. I propose a line of brutally honest family decals, such as a large scratch-out that can be placed over divorced spouses, or a cougar decal for those aging ladies on the prowl.

Overall though, I feel the tackiest decals are the ones meant to be the most sincere. Ladies and gentlemen I am referring to the dead family member memorial decal. These memorials have been known to span the entire width of rear windshields at times, creating unavoidable reminders that the driver has a deceased family member. The question I pose to these drivers is: aren’t your family members worth more to you than that? Personally, I do not want to be memorialized on my wife’s back windshield, and have gone so far as to threaten that should she do this, my spirit will haunt her vehicle and steer it straight off the road at the most inopportune of moments. At least then we can hang out again.