Over the years, whether it's been displayed on my car or the "new" van, I've noticed people smiling and laughing at the sticker, which is just fine. It is pretty tongue-in-cheek, after all. Sometimes I see folks looking at it and they look mad or confused and, well, that's just fine with me too. But I haven't really had a face-to-face chat with anyone about the sticker in a while. Then, over the weekend, I had another encounter not entirely unlike my chat in the gas station back in 2006.
On Saturday, we were driving to Fort Wayne to visit some family. When I say "we," I mean Thomai, the kids, my mother-in-law & father-in-law and me. We were passing through a decent-sized rural town not too far from the Ohio/Indiana border and we stopped for lunch at a crowded restaurant right at the peak of the lunch rush. As we were all piling out of the van and stretching a bit, I heard a woman's voice saying, "Excuse me....excuse me." I looked behind me and I saw a lady who had just parked approaching the van quickly. I kind of anticipated that she was going to ask us for directions and I started to tell her we were from out-of-town when she said, "I know I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I have a question about something on your van." At first, I thought she was going to ask about my "Cynthia McKinney for President" sticker, but she quickly zeroed in on the "I'd rather be smashing imperialism" sticker, underlining the word "imperialism" again and again with her index finger. "What does this word mean?" she said, passing over it again.
I was not sure where this was going. I always assume it's going to be a fight, I guess. I started to open my mouth to speak and then I realized I really didn't exactly know where to go with all this. I was standing in a crowded parking lot in a relatively strange place (trust me, it's strange up there) and my kids and in-laws were all right there in the thick of it with me. How could I go into Lenin or Zinoviev? Do I talk about Iraq? Maybe neocolonialism could be briefly discussed... Then I looked at the lady and I realized she wasn't talking to me...She was talking to my father-in-law. I thought to myself, "Well, this situation is officially no good." I said to the woman, "It's mine...Just a minute" and I went to the driver's side and closed my door so we could get on with the chat.
I walked back and closed the van door and returned to the back of the van where I was surprised to see the lady leaning in to listen intently to my father-in-law as he spoke quietly, yet sternly to her. He had her full attention. He said, "It means, 'Smash the ones who do all the smashing.' The bad people."
I wasn't sure what to expect. The lady paused and thought for a second and I worried that she might unleash some kind of jingoistic tirade. Then her face lit up and she said, "Oh! Okay! I just wanted to know what it meant for sure in case my kids asked me." She was perfectly happy and went on her way.
My father-in-law had clearly shown me that being straightforward and succinct is much better than over-thinking things and overreacting. It was an answer that was brilliant in its simplicity and true the spirit of the original message.
