SAV 13.1

For a country where you are not supposed to talk about religion or politics, people sure love to cover the back of their car in stickers and magnets on those two exact topics. From "Coexist" to "I work for a Jewish carpenter", to "W'04" to "Yes we can", Americans love to express their identities through their bumpers.

Now this automotive self-presentation isn't limited to religious and political expressions. There are stickers and magnets for every imaginable belief, lifestyle, hobby, or achievement. Do you have four kids, love Disney, and two of your children play soccer? There's a sticker for that. Have you just completed a marathon, an ironman, or something equally athletically impressive? There's stickers for that too. There's sticker and magnets for breast cancer ("save the tata's!"), adopted pets ("Save a life! Opt to adopt!"), the various branches of the military ("I love my airman"), your alma mater, and every other imaginable aspect of life.

A specific type of bumpersticker that seems to be on the rise is neither political, nor religious, nor athelitic in nature, but yet equally intriguing: the acronym. Also known as, let me show you all the cool and totally awesome places I've been in a way that will make you wonder where exactly I went long after after you first saw my car. It's the self-presentation sticker supreme: the acronym.

Just like European countries have their own acronyms (GB = Great Britain, NL = Netherlands, F = France), various American cities have taken it upon themselves to design their own acronym and place it on the same round black-and-white sticker used in Europe. So Hilton Head Island has become "HHI", the Outerbanks are "OBX", and St. Simons Island is "SSI".

Coming from Europe, my feelings towards those stickers are divided. On the one hand, they annoy the crap out of me. I'm sorry if you are the proud owner of such a sticker, but do you know how irksome it is to pull up to a car, get all excited because "Hey! They have a round European-looking acronym on their car! Maybe they're from Holland! Cool", and then to realize it's just an SUV-wielding soccer-mom who wants the world to know she spent the weekend in Savannah (SAV).

On the other hand, having such stickers adorn the backs of cars is very much like driving through Europe, and trying to guess what each sticker/acronym on German license plates stands for. And as you may recall from a post in 2008, that was one of my favorite pastimes back in Europe. When we moved here, I was slightly peeved that I would now have to give up figuring out that "NE" stood for "Neuss", and so part of me is elated that instead I get to think and think and think and feel incredibly proud of myself for figuring that OBX really does mean Outerbanks.

Having said all of this, though, let's look at my car. My car is, or was, I should say, very bare. Very, very bare. I had a "I love my adopted puppy" magnet on there for about three weeks, after a trip through the car wash took care of that. The NL sticker I purchased a few years ago has long since faded away, and all I have on the car now is an almost three-year old "swim bike run" magnet, that was bought in a moment of temporary brainfailure. And I really don't care enough about other people knowing which politician I support, that I ran a half marathon, whether or not I care for "tatas", or where I go to church to cover my car in brightly colored stickers. I also kind of like the paint on my car to stay the way it is. Call me a Scrooge, but there you have it.

But then we went to Savannah. And ran the Rock 'n Roll (half) marathon. In spite of its many flaws (a girlie t-shirt being one of them, according to husband-dear), it had one major upside: lots of freebees. Lots and lots of them. And one of those freebees was a bright green "SAV 13.1" sticker. Although it embodies three things I despise: 1. the color best described as Kermit-green; 2. a silly acronym that is not European, and 3. an announcement of a personal accomplishment (that really doesn't mean all that much in the world of runners), I couldn't just throw it away. The Savannah half was one of my toughest races, and finishing it was real achievement.

So, yes, I now too have a bright-green SAV 13.1 sticker on my back window.
I'm sorry.