Fred Aiken Writing

It’s not really a problem if there’s no medical solution to fix it. At least, I’m not ready to admit that I have a problem yet. It’s everybody else that doesn’t like all my bumper stickers. In particular, it’s my girlfriend’s problem. She polices the stickers I receive and determines whether or not I can put said sticker on my car’s bumper. To her credit, I did go a little overboard. At the moment, I have a little over 300 stickers, give or take, somewhere on my car. I suppose bumper sticker is  a bit of a misnomer since they’re all over the place. There’s just not enough room on my bumper.

I don’t know why I feel compelled to put a sticker on my car once someone hands me one. I suppose I just don’t know where else to put the sticker, and because someone—usually friends and family—took the time to find, purchase, and hand me a sticker, I feel as if I cannot dispose of the sticker. It seems too disrespectful of their effort to just willy-nilly discard it. Though once a sticker goes on my car, well, I doubt any gift-giver could tell whether the sticker they gave me was or wasn’t on the back of my car.

But I suppose it’s my own fault. I’m notoriously difficult to shop for. If it were up to me, then I’d prefer if people would just stop getting me anything. And I’ve told them that! So it’s not like any of my friends or family can feign ignorance. 

But you get one sticker—just one sticker!—when you’re 14 that you think is cool and put on your skateboard, and then suddenly that’s all I’m ever given for birthdays, Christmas, and whatever other gift-giving holidays there are.

It might not be all that healthy, and sure, I admit that it’s the reason that I got in a little trouble, but I don’t know what else I was supposed to do. I had too many bumper stickers on my car. I thought all the other cars on the road started to look a little too bare. So yeah, I guess I took it upon myself to put my excess stickers onto other people’s bumpers. But it’s not all that bad of a crime. It’s not like I hurt anyone. 

I just ask that you look at my record and see that I’m really not all that bad of a guy. I learned my lesson. It won’t happen again. There’s really no need, I say, to throw the book at me, your honor.