Okay, I'm not one of those people that announces their every thought via bumperstickers, I had one. It wasn't even a sticker, it was one of those magnet things. A peace sign cutout from the globe that said "Imagine", simple, subtle, understated and now STOLEN. Who steals a peace symbol? I mean really. I don't do stickers because they end up looking like crap in a few months of weather exposure and your attitude may change but you're still stuck advertising your original thought. Plus the stickers I'd put on my car would get rocks thrown through my windows at the grocery store. I thought my little magnet would be with me for a while but NOOOOOO. Stealing a peace sign? That's such a total slap to the whole hippy, love everyone, make love not war thing I had going here. I want some punishment! Heads must roll for this one, carpet bombing shall commence and the beatings will continue until my peace symbol is returned. I may be violating the whole message I was attempting to convey here...a little. This whole episode makes me think about the things people will steal.
I kind of get the attraction to traffic and street signs when you're of a certain age, I myself had a stop sign in my room for several years but now it's really doesn't go with the rest of my decor. My father had a tendency to lift ashtrays from his favorite bars and restaurants when he smoked. Of course, who hasn't accidentally tucked a hotel towel into their suitcase at the end of a trip? Last summer, we had a wet floor sign disappear from work. A wet floor sign? Really? It didn't even have the cartoon guy falling on the wet floor, just the words. What fun is that? The sign turned up several months later two towns away in the school parking lot. Fortunately, it had our restaurant's name and location on it, so it found its way home. This fall, my political yard signs were ALL stolen, not just the in-demand Obama sign, but my local guys' signs too. Who the heck wanted a Peterson sign that bad? I have a friend whose hose was taken, unscrewed from the spout and lifted off the hook thing, disappear. A hose? What kind of thinking is in place there? My parents' snowblower was taken out of their garage a few years ago, while my mother and sisters were in the kitchen (overlooking the garage) at the time. That's ballsy.
Travelocity (I think) had to have gotten their idea for the 'roaming gnome' ad campaign from a news item several years ago, I can't remember where I read about this but I remember the story well. A woman in New York State had a garden gnome that kept disappearing from her yard. A few days after each disappearance, she'd start receiving photos in the mail of her garden gnome in various locations around first the US, then the world. The gnome would reappear in her yard a couple of weeks after each disappearance, only to vanish again a few months later and the photos would again arrive in the mail. No ransom notes, no demands for its incarcerated bretheren's release, just photos of the gnome enjoying its odd journey. I don't know if she ever figured out who was liberating her garden gnome, but it eventually quit disappearing, his wanderlust apparently appeased. This kind of theft I can understand and even enjoy, she too seemed quite amused by the whole thing.
So I get it...PEACE.
