Driving home this week from a late and long lunch found me stuck in rush hour traffic at one of those busy intersections where two six-lane streets intersect. The protected left turn green light, naturally, is so short and the entire traffic signal cycle so long that it is generally understood that a light turning red means at least one more car.
Stuck in the backed-up left turn lane, I settled in for what I knew would be at least two cycles before it would be my turn. The vehicle in front of me was a late model in a rather elegant tannish camel color that I would in no way associate with the words “range” or “rover.” It looked like the sort of transportation that a rich person would choose, or at least a person with enough access to funds to appear that way. This is Dallas, after all, known for its smoke and mirrors as much as anything else.
But there was a telling sign on this one in the form of a personalized vanity plate for it was emblazoned with the last name of one of Dallas’ billionaire families, luckily short enough to fit on a license plate and followed by the number “1.” Inching forward through another traffic cycle, my perverse mind went in a direction I suspect was not anticipated by the owner of this vehicle as I thought the bumper needed a sticker that read simply “Sue Me.”
I indulged in a late afternoon daydream of getting ahead of this guy, slamming on the brakes in slow-moving traffic causing a rear-end collision and a frivolous but profitable nuisance lawsuit. But the dream was dashed when the protected left green light turned red, and Mr. Richer Than Croesus proved to be the one more car that turned anyway against the light. Curses! Foiled again.
But many of us send out signs of some sort quite a bit of the time. A couple of years ago, I was standing in line to vote on a weekday afternoon. There were perhaps thirty people ahead of me, and we were wrapped around the corner of the waiting area to get into the polling booths in such a snakelike fashion that I could observe almost everyone in line at pretty much the same time.
The voters represented diverse general types of people but more of them were thirty-something women than anything else. Practically to a person, they were dressed alike in that active style that implies their next stop was the gym or a yoga class. They wore little to no makeup, and their hair was either pulled straight back in a ponytail or worn atop their heads in a messy bun. But the signs, the vanity plates if you will, were the bags. Some were clearly chosen simply for their utility and perhaps their low cost. Then there were name-brand bags, slightly more upscale but not to be confused with those from the high-end designer boutiques that the hoi polloi are sometimes uncertain how to pronounce. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good bag as Karl can affirm, but we all know what they are, don’t we?
This being the political season, the candidate of one’s choice is quite literally a sign sunk in the front yard of many folks. We have a new neighbor, that is, someone bought a house in the next block down the street whose name I will likely never know although I know how much was paid for the house. Who lives there is not my business; what they paid to live there is.
So this new neighbor has put quite a bit of effort into displaying enthusiasm for this particular candidate of choice. The name is spelled out in red, white and blue letters followed by the number 2024, which must have required a visit to the local Party Warehouse or some such place. To each his own is a family motto, but this array with the accompanying more traditional yard signs is borderline tacky. The funny thing is that the house directly across the street seemingly responded with a blossoming of yard signs for the opposing candidate. Now I giggle every time I drive by the conflicting houses. Welcome to the neighborhood.
I’ve never been drawn to vanity plates for the car, and it’s unlikely that my being drawn to really good bags will ever be fully sated, but my relationship with political yard signs is a bit more complex.
Over the years, our front yard has been home to these unpaid political advertisements for various candidates up and down the ballot. Until a few years back when it dawned on me that every single candidate that we had ever put up a sign for ultimately lost the election. Some of them won the primary, to be sure, but not the general. The only thing a reasonably intelligent, reasonably educated, reasonably rational person could deduce is that our putting up a yard sign was the kiss of death. A jinx. A curse. Whatever you want to call it.
Knowing that, maybe I should make my way down to meet that new neighbor. Perhaps he’d be happy to share where he found those red, white and blue letters.
