Thursday, July 24, 2008

back-asswards

I’ve had a few interactions with the police lately. But don’t worry mom, they can’t prove anything. There was that officer who idled next to me when I changed my pants, and of course there was the police business of my break-in – which was so disappointing, just for the record. I thought they’d come out and dust for prints, canvas the scene, interview witnesses, and nab the perp. But they just took my number and said an officer would call me back to take the report over the phone, and if no one called within 24 hours I should call them again. To their credit, I got a call within a couple of hours, a sweet officer who said things like: “Geez, that guy was fast!” and “Thank God he didn’t get your purse!” In my head, he looked like this:



But I digress. I also had a police incident at work recently, and we went to a safety expo in our neighborhood last weekend where the kids and I talked to lots of police men and women, and they even got to sit on CHP motorcycles.

These recent police interludes were all significant to me, because I have been trying to capture a specific digital image for some time now and I've been keen to find the opportunity. I finally got it yesterday!

It was hard, I needed a photo of the passenger side of a local police car, and while I had a few opportunities to get one while driving, I was too scared I'd vear into oncoming traffic, which is probably frowned upon by the police. Or worse, I might have been seen taking the photo by the cop. Wouldn't that violate the hands-free rule?

This all started a few weeks ago when I was driving the kids around, and a police car stopped next to us. We were checking out the car and could not help but notice this:



The kids wanted to know why the flag was backwards. I could not imagine an answer! What the hell? It’s not like the way ambulance is written backwards on the front of a rig so you can read it in your rearview mirror, this just does not make sense. I signaled to the cop that I had a question, and he rolled down his window. “We were just wondering why the flag on your car is backwards”, I said curiously.

He said that all the flag stickers are the same, there is no left or right side distinction. So the flags look right on the driver side...


but they are fucking backwards on the passenger side!


Is it me, or is this complete lunacy? Did someone make a conscious decision to do this? Did they just figure “ah, what the hell, just slap ‘em on there. No one will notice.” Or did someone fuck up royally and order like 50 gazillion flag stickers before realizing that exactly half of them would be BACKWARDS?

I do not know what to do about this. It disturbs me. It’s embarrassing. I wouldn’t put a fucking backwards flag sticker on my car, and it's not like anyone is expecting me to be a model of civic responsibility.

Silly peeps.

What would the real police think?


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL, Jacquie. I always thought it was something about the wind blowing it backwards. A sticker of a flag the wind had blown backwards. And now I realize that that theory is perhaps not as well thought out as, say, the theory of relativity.

BTW, I think that first image is a Maytag Repair Man.

Anonymous said...

You knew about this? And thought it was blowing backwards? Maybe if it had ripples I could buy that theory.

Maytag repair man? See how unimportant my crime was to them?

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'm sure it was the Boss of all Maytag Reparimen they sent to the Scene of the Crime.

And, yes. Those silly bass-ackwards stickers on are many civic vehicles in addition to San Diego's Finest.
Of course, I can't remember where, but I have an email in to my memory (i.e. Mistah Schleckah) to remind me.

Rita said...

This is making my head hurt. The idea that it's fine on the driver's side and the backwards on the passenger's side doesn't make sense. Those are two different stickers, obviously... right? I mean, the right one has the blue square in the left top corner and the backwards one has the blue square in the right top corner. If you just took the peel off the correct one, it'd be correct, regardless of the door. I think that cop was lying to you, which is much more disturbing than a backwards flag.

Anonymous said...

The flag thing, it's creeping me out. IN MY DAY (omg I never thought I'd say that) on the fire department, we would have NEVER allowed that! We would have gone postal on the sticker manufacturer.

But I think I may have the solution, and pardon me while I puke - just a little in my mouth - but perhaps.......the flag stickers were MADE IN CHINA??????

Anonymous said...

hmmm, good point, Rita. I don't think the guy was lying , he was just trying to make up an answer that I would accept and then go away. Yeah, if the stickers were all the same it would be correct no matter what - maybe it's a stencil! Or maybe half of them were messed up and put on wrong. Something was bothering me about this flag business while I was trying to catch a few winks after publishing early this morning. But in my head, if the sticker had been backwards the blue square would have been on the bottom left. It's making my head hurt, too. Who brought this shit up, anyway?

Anonymous said...

Wow, you guys. And I thought the Theory of Relativity was complicated....

Rita said...

The stencil concept would work, if by accident, someone flipped the stencil and then was all, oh, fuck, I totally messed up this cop car! and his buddy was like, oh, crap, hey, well, we'll ALL do it like that, so it'll look like it was on purpose! and the first guy was all, oh, man dude, you'd do that? that's AWESOME, you're the best! and then a third guy comes in and agrees to do it to more public vehicles to make the whole "it's on purpose" concept look real. So, maybe it started out really nice, just a guy covering for his buddy's stencil error, not wanting him to get in trouble with the police for messing up the car?

Anonymous said...

Oh. My. God. Rita, you are a loon. And I mean that in the nicest possible way...

Kathy Rogers said...

Well, they're British. So, I don't think they care. Do they?

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