6.7.11 Car Stickers

Today I followed a Ford Focus.  The main focus of my attention was the signage in the back windscreen; two stickers announcing to me who was 'on board'.  Obviously the use of 'on board' for a Ford Focus is misuse of the term, in my opinion.  Still, let's allow that one to pass, and concentrate on the main point - the discrepancy arising from two claims regarding those apparently on board.

There is of course on file (by way of my post dated 12th February 2011) a comprehensive analysis of the 'Child On Board' phenomenon, so I will try to avoid repetition of the inappropriateness highlighted in that long post.  Instead, my attention will be directed more to the pairing of signs in the Focus.

Mummy's Little Princess On Board

Mum To Be On Board

The first thing that struck me was that the Mum-To-Be sign suggested the driver (who was at least female) was pregnant.  If so, then in theory, the sign could be fitting.  However, the presence of the Little Princess sign rather messed things up because that would mean the driver was already a mother, and that she had no right to claim some sort of sympathetic approach from me (to excuse shit driving, for example) and perhaps encourage me not to ram her car up the arse in case the shock caused a miscarriage.  The fact that one sign claimed the on-board Princess was "Mummy's" meant that the other sign should have read Mum On Board.

I considered whether the Princess was the offspring of someone other than the driver, but dismissed this as unlikely.  There are not too many small females who provide their own signage to put up in other people's cars, to be chauffeured around and fool those in the car behind into thinking they are possibly the daughters of random female drivers.  After deciding my logic was totally sound, I concluded that it was the mother/driver who was at fault. 

A mile further on, I realised that there was actually no passenger, let alone a supposed 'Princess'.  It made me wonder: if the driver could lie about having a Princess on board, then she could probably lie about being pregnant as well!  "Where will it all end?", I asked myself.  The answer was actually 'at the top of the hill', as it turned out, because the driver turned left and I was left to drive on without dubious statements/claims dangling in my field of view.

In summary, the signs were contradictory, and whether a car has 'on-board' occupants who qualify as Royalty or some-cunt-expecting-a-baby-to-pass-through-in-the-near-future is completely irrelevant.  Even hazardous goods don't get words, only an orange square now.  A further sign in the Focus would have been appropriate, I thought, as I pulled up at the lights; Liar On Board.  But as I pulled up a minute later at the end of my journey, I realised that this sign could itself be confusing for anyone other than the Focus driver, who was clearly lying.  As the 'Liar On Board' claim could be a lie, then any of us could display just this sign and having it dangling or stuck to the glass would in effect be meaningless, because it's in effect a double negative.

...