Life's Little Injustices (Take XXIV): Not My Bumper Sticker, Not My Neighbor

 

<"How's My Driving?
We Don't Wanna Know..."/
Take I:The Reckoner>

Apologies in advance, as they say, if this graphic seems like a crude way to start off this time. But sometimes, it takes a crude image to generate a suitably pointed response, as I'm doing here (with a bit of artistic license, via Yer Humbler Narrator). My rendition captures the sight that greeted me a couple of tropically humid weeks ago, when I went outside, to take out the trash.

Basically, the image is of a bumper sticker that I spotted on one of our building resident's cars --  not the sprawling, battleship-sized likes of the Ford F150, if I recall correctly, but something like it. My eyes did a double take, as did my brain (Wow, people really do act this cartoonish!), especially when I glanced around, and saw no obvious signs of damage.

Whew, I told myself. That's a relief, at least. Had this guy sported a grotesquely damaged bumper, or the visible scars of battle all around the body, I'd have made a mental note: For Christ's sake, if you see this bumper sticker during your daily travels, keep a car length away, at least. 

I hurled the latest trash bug into our dumpster, and thought no more of the sticker... That is, until a week or so later, when I heard a disturbing sound, while working into the wee hours, as usual. It was 4:00 a.m., and the Monkees were doing their cheeky-cheery-chappie thing, on some marathon or other, while I pecked away at the keyboard.

Then the insistent rattling started coming from the foyer entry door. At first, I did what everyone else does, in this situation. I ignored it. Somebody just forgot their keys, and doesn't know -- or can't summon up, from the darkest corners of their brain -- the four-digit entry code that opens the door. Somebody'll come get them, or they'll go away. Either way, though, it'll blow over.

Or so it seemed. A mere five minutes or so later, however, the sound had returned, this time, amid a torrent of pounding fists, beating on the door in waves, with the manic energy that only the truly unhinged can summon:

Whump-WHUMP-whump-whump-WHUMP! Whump-A-Whump-A-whump-whump-whump-whump!

I swear that I heard some muffled cursing, too, but I couldn't be sure. When the battering ram approach didn't work, the Unknown Knocker started rattling the entry door -- first, at a steady tempo that resembled a nagging itch. Soon, however, that itch gave way to a frenzied hammering. Metal rattled against metal, and then, against glass, without ever giving way.

Whatever someone coming to rescue them, or stop their insanity, I knew that the Unknown Knocker was doomed to leave empty-handed. Whatever they wanted, they'd succeeded in jangling every last nerve of mine. The minute the chaos started, I clicked off the TV, and kept a keen eye through my tightly shuttered blinds, pacing back and forth.

What if their fists start hammering on my window, like barrages of hail? Will I have to call the cops to sort them out? However, I ruled out the idea. Remember, I tell myself: police reports are public information. Anybody can get their hands on them.

Next thing you know, they might show up at your door...once they've figured out who filed it. As the Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra once observed, in a different context: "Sometimes -- it makes sense to chicken out!" Not that I'm proud of myself, mind you, but I live in a small area, where urban anonymity isn't an option.

Eventually, finally, mercifully, though, the raging doofus finally gives up, and fades into the night. I don't see their handiwork till the next day. The glass face of the entry door is literally covered with finger marks, and smudged-up imprints, where somebody's clenched fist  -- or palm, perhaps -- has made its mark.

The damage to the chair, though, is the most startling sign of how much pent-up rage I actually heard. For as long as I can remember, that chair has been bolted to a table, where the delivery folks drop off their packages. The chair legs, in turn, screw onto two wooden slats, that are similarly connected to the table. 

Or they were, until this weekend. In their frenzied attempt to gatecrash their way inside, the Unknown Knocker -- some way, somehow -- had managed to break the chair off both slats, and apparently, briefly, enlisted it as a makeshift battering ram.

Management hasn't replaced the chair, a move that the Squawker decries ("I need a place to sit down, while you're checking the mail!"). I honestly don't blame them, though. For all we know, the Unknown Knocker might be my neighbor down the hall, or some friend of theirs, maybe even a casual acquaintance who stayed the night. Would you rush to install another chair, after what just happened? Not me, Your Honor.

Which brings me back where I started, to that damn sticker. Is the person who slapped "1-800-EAT-SHIT" so proudly on their rear bumper -- where you're guaranteed to see it, remember -- the same one who battered the entry door, and broke the chair off its moorings? Probably not, but it's not such a stretch to imagine, considering how much this nation celebrates mindless aggression for its own sake.

We saw it during the early 2000s, when popular culture buckled under a counterrevolution of gleaming plastic boy bands, and ever more brainless action movies -- with all their barrages of curses, special effects, bangs and explosions -- as if the yawp 'n' yaaarrrggghhh! of Kurt Cobain, and quirky '90s-era film fare like Clerks, Drugstore Cowboy, Naked Lunch, and Private Idaho had never even happened.

We saw this same phenomenon rear up again during the 2010s, as the official economy started coming apart at the seams, thanks to all that make believe money getting hoovered up by the overweening likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs. What do they have in common? They're all celebrated for their ability to make one dollar become two, three, and four, followed by the inevitable B-movie villain punchline, when someone dares to push back against them: "I'll crush you like a bug! You hear me? Like a bug!" If you don't believe me, just look at the checkout counter, and see who's getting all those glossy magazine covers. I don't remember seeing Raffi on any of them.

And we continue to see it during the 2020s, driven by your favorite James Bond-style villains and mine, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and all their knuckle-dragging acolytes, many of whom exhibit the darkest, basest, most twisted of attitudes toward women, especially those who don't seem interested in becoming their permanent trophies or appliances. They come off as the eternally clueless incel who couldn't find the G-spot without a map and a compass, doomed to permanent preteen-hood on the comfort zone of their Boomer mom's couch, like some hellish reality show version of Beavis and Butthead, without any of the punchlines.

Yet we're now expected to just keep staring straight ahead, and pretend that everything's "back to normal," or something like that, right? The bumper sticker on that truck, and the wreckage in my foyer, tell me otherwise. Whatever brought on that mindless outburst, I've no idea, but until we stop celebrating it -- or sweeping it under the carpet, where it's easier to overlook it -- we won't ever get past it. The tea leaves are there, for those who care enough to read them. We ignore them at our peril. --  The Reckoner

<"How's My Driving?

We Don't Wanna Know..."/

Take II:The Reckoner>