Monday, April 01, 2013

Symbolicity

I don't have a lot of decorative accessories on my truck. I firmly believe that there's way too much oversharing of information when it comes to how people trick out their rides. Being behind you at a traffic light is not where I should find out how you voted in the last election, that you have a wife, three kids and a dog, two of the kids are honor students (who dropped the ball on #3 there?), that you run marathons, you're a big fan of the Boston Celtics and that your back window is dedicated to the loving memory of someone who died at the age of 23. Also, if you have more than four band stickers on the back of your car, you're a bigger fan of stickers than you are of music.
However, I recently expressed my appreciation of a certain decoration and didn't know where to find one. My friend Donna got me one for my birthday (the only person who gave me an actual birthday gift, by the way, sniff and sob). Here it is...


SOMETHING YOU NEED TO KNOW - The fish that the dino is munching on is an Ichthys or Ichthus or Ikhthus from the Koine Greek word ( ΙΧΘΥΣ or ΙΧΘΥϹ) for "fish" and that ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthys) is an acronym for "Ίησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ", (Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr), which translates into English as "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior".

I like it because I like dinosaurs, not because I'm knocking Christians or making any kind of religious statement at all really. I do think it's funny though. I fully recognize that this doesn't absolve me from possibly offending someone, that my little chuckle doesn't negate the feelings of someone who places value in that particular symbol. Even though, at least in the case of the Baronyx, it's historically accurate...

Point being, I realize that one day somebody might say something to me about it and I'll have to make a decision about how I respond to that.

This was on my mind the other day when I found myself behind someone in traffic who had the traditional Ichthys on the back of their car. It was heavily on my mind when I passed them and ended stopped at a red light with them directly behind me. Now I felt like I'm just thrusting my irreverent, blasphemous, disrespectful truck art right in their face. "Yeah, take it. You like that? Urgh!! Yeah! You like that?" I sat there glancing back and forth between the red light in front of me and the driver behind me, wondering if he was going to get out of the car and tap on my window with a softball bat. Imagine my surprise when... absolutely nothing happened.
The light turned green, I drove off, they eventually turned and I never saw them again.
I waste a lot of time worrying about stuff that never happens.

2 comments:

Stella said...

Still, I think it's important to worry about such things sometimes. . .it keeps the worry muscle well flexed and ready for really important worries. . .
We have those stupid "My Family" stickers depicting stick figures of the family members. Honestly sometimes there are so many kids, dogs, cats, chickens and horses that there's hardly any room left on the rear window!

Unknown said...

If I knew where to get those stickers, I have female friends who could wake up one morning to find one woman sticker and about 18little kid stickers on their back windows.
Do they really have chicken stickers? I could be tempted to put one man sticker and about a dozen chicken stickers on MY window.