A Family And An Advertisement (Thrice)

If you have something you want to say to the world, what better way than on the back of your car?  It’s even better than buying a radio or TV ad that people can switch on and off willy nilly – it goes everywhere you go, and it’s like mandatory reading for anyone who happens to drive behind you. They can’t escape it.  So when you happen to be looking for a something (or someone), why waste your money on old-fashioned advertising?  Take a lesson from these folks and just use your rear windshield.

The first one appears to be looking for a new dad.  Two kids and one pet…doesn’t look like too much for a stepdad to take on.  Seems pretty standard in the scheme of today’s blended families.  The second one is seeking a new mom.  Three kids (who looks like they are either teenagers or about to be teenagers) and a dog…that is a lot more demanding than the first one.  Give me a toddler over a teenager any day of the week.  Yikes.

But that third one...if I'm not mistaken, that is an advertisement for an entire set of new parents.  And if that is the case, is the little girl driving?  Maybe she is steering and the dog is pushing the pedals?  Or do the parents hate their lives so much that they are taking applications for their own replacements?  Not sure how I really feel about any of those scenarios...

A Family...Or Are They?

I'll be honest.  I'm trying to come up with material, but I can't figure out the family dynamic here.

Two adult women and one adult man.  Are any of them married?  Maybe a little polygamy?  Or he has two girlfriends? Or one wife and a mistress? Or are they a brother and two sisters?

Who exactly is working in this family?  Who pays for the craft supplies and the fishing trips and the beach vacations?  Or the car? Or the stickers? Or the dogs?

And what in God's name is going on with the crafter's hair?  I feel like of these three people, she was probably most likely the purchaser of the stickers so she should have ended up with the best hair and accessories, right?

Hey family...If you are going to give us little taglines about things you like to do, you could throw us a bone and tell us what the deal is with your random adult sticker clan.

A Family And A Proud Girl Scout

I myself am a former Girl Scout, and I think there was a time when I may have even agreed with the sentiment that Girl Scouts Rock!  I went to Girl Scout Camp, I got merit badges, I sold cookies, etc.  And not the way today's Girl Scouts sell cookies, with their parents posting a Facebook status and getting like 400 orders in an hour while they sit around playing on a pink Nintendo DS. I was the little pigtailed kid who bundled up and walked door-to-door selling those delicious little boxes. Back in my day, we had to work for it!

So, before I get to the sticker family, here's a little story... One time when I was in middle school, someone from the local newspaper in my hometown wanted to do a story about different recipes that could be made using Girl Scout cookies, and they asked my mom and me to be a part of it.  I was a good kid and was pretty naive about the consequences this could have on me socially, so I agreed to help my mom with it. We gathered recipes, made some desserts, and dressed up for the article photos. Then when it was printed, my teachers hung the article up on bulletin boards and in classrooms around the school. In less than a day, both mine and my mom's eyes and teeth had been poked out with pushpins in the picture on every copy of the article, and everyone was mercilessly teasing me until I finally asked my teachers to take them down.  And that was the end of my days as a Girl Scout.

That said, there are a couple issues here:
-Mom and Dad, please stop staring at me with those I've-had-way-too-much-caffeine eyes.
-Save your kid from the teasing!  Not only do you have a sticker family on your van, but you put your daughter on there as a GIANT Girl Scout?? As soon as you drop her off for the school dance, it's over for her. Take it from me.  Save her the tears and just peel that thing off right now.
-Whose bat and ball is that?  Do they belong to your other daughter? Do you have an invisible son?
-You're breaking all kinds of rules by having only one member of your family be represented in color and with a discernible interest.  Get it together.

End Note: If you are one of the people I went to school with and remember that story I told, know that I forgive you.  You are a dick and I hope karma got you, but I forgive you.

A Family And A Dream (Times Five)

Ohio is a great state. There is at least one pro sports team within an hour's drive of most residents, we matter in elections, we gave the world Cedar Point and Great Lakes Christmas Ale, we have produced more US Presidents than any other state (yeah, yeah...I know the Ohio/Virginia debate here...it's Ohio), we are home to both the Pro Football and the Rock & Roll Halls of Fame, we know how to throw a hell of a tailgate party, and fall weather here is damn near perfect.  

However, this time of year, some Ohioans find themselves wishing they were somewhere else. Somewhere warmer.  For all the awesome things about Ohio, it is really freaking cold here in the winter.  And some of us may get a little testy come February, since we've been stuck in a cloud dungeon for three months suffering from Seasonal Depression Disorder.  So we dream of a place with sunny skies, a place where we don't have to use every sharp tool within reach to break through the impenetrable ice forcefield on our car to drive somewhere.

And for many Ohioans, apparently that place is South Carolina.

Besides buying dumb car stickers, these five families have something in common: they are Ohio residents (I cut out license plates, so you'll have to trust me on that one) with a South Carolina emblem sticker on their car.  Maybe they have a favorite vacation spot in SC.  Maybe they have southern roots and some (sticker) grandparents there.  Or maybe they are just dreamers.

Chin up, fellow Ohioans.  Only another month until spring.  Okay, maybe two months.  Three, tops.

A Family In Castle Wasowski

Welcome to Castle Wasowski...where the giant smiling sun from the Raisin Bran box is always shining, where Dad might be some kind of architect and Mom has hideous hair.

Castle Wasowski, where Dad and Mom, like so many other parents, are confusing their eldest daughter, Jane, for an actual princess. (Though I will admit that Jane has the best princess outfit I have seen thus far.)

Aaaaaah, Castle Wasowski, where Julie and her rubber ducky never get out of the tub (cleanest kid ever?!).  Where Mom and Dad throw caution to the wind and, instead of using a modern stroller focused on child safety, push Lily around in a bassinet on wheels.  Castle Wasowski, a place where Denim protects everyone from strangers at the front door.

Oh, Castle Wasowski, where............Fielder is dead.



ALTERNATE CAPTION:

This is wrong. Something is wrong. That dad is not Mike Wasowski!!  THIS is Mike Wasowski:

 

A Family On A House

A friend of mine recently moved into a new house.  I went to visit, only to find this little gem on the window next to the front door.  So of course my first move was to kneel down and capture my next blog victim.

I guess it's not enough anymore to advertise to everyone who drives behind you that you're a single mom with a daughter and two dogs.  Now, you need every Girl Scout, Jehovah's Witness, UPS driver, and neighbor asking for a cup of sugar to know it, too.

Also, this sticker says to me, "I am a single mom who works full time and probably also has to take my daughter to her 16 extracurricular activities on evenings and weekends. And then I come home and probably stress about paying my bills and saving for her college fund, so I take Ambien to sleep. Are you looking for a house to rob? Pick me!!!!"

Note: My friend told me (and I confirmed) that sticker families are very hard to get off of glass. It definitely requires a razor blade.  So if you are considering one of these, I suggest you confirm that your marriage and all pictured hobbies are committed to and solid before making the purchase.

A Family And The American Dream

A dad with a gut, drinking a beer and grilling a steak. I imagine him going to his thankless job every day, clad in a short-sleeved dress shirt and a paisley tie, mindlessly punching numbers into a computer, occasionally visiting the water cooler, eating a ham sandwich on wheat bread for lunch and counting down the minutes until 5:00.

A mom with a laptop and a cell phone.  She's so mentally checked out of her marriage that she needs two constant electronic distractions at all times. She spends most of the family's discretionary income on tight skirts, champagne brunches and cellular data plans, so all of Dad's beer and steaks (and her car stickers) go on credit cards. In fact, they just made the payment on their SUV using a payday loan with a 750% interest rate. She is desperate to be the cool mom who is hip to technology. Case in point: she recently signed up for facebook (using a photo from 14 years ago), twitter (she doesn't understand the character limit so she keeps posting incomplete rants about aisle changes at the grocery store), foursquare (she just earned mayorship at the nail salon), pinterest (she recently started a pinboard of all the Valentine's Day crafts she wants to make) and instagram ("Did I drink this whole bottle of wine?! Whoopsie!"), and yesterday she started sending nude photos to random numbers via snapchat. (Also, she is wearing Minnie Mouse shoes, but I couldn't find a way to weave that into her story, so you readers can just do what you want to with that observation.)

Two daughters, both wearing outfits of questionable appropriateness. One in a midriff-baring tanktop and the other in a dress hardly covering her ass.  Dad doesn't want either of them to leave the house like that, but knows he will lose the battle when Mom starts screaming things at him about tampons and not understanding teenage trends. So he drowns himself in more beer and steaks, rather than have one more fight. Mom spends 93% of her day on the internet in one form or another, both girls spend every night shut in their rooms texting on their iPhones, and Dad wishes he could afford something better than Bud Light.

It's the American dream..................right?