January 8, 2008: Oh, it's a checklist
There's a fad around town these days in which people place icons representing the members of their family on their back windshield. Usually, these are tacky cartoon figures, but sometimes they are tacky flip-flop icons instead. In both cases, they're somehow signaling to the world at large the exact make-up of the family for some reason.
I've wondered why people would find it important to tell us how many people are in their family, and I at first assumed it was bragging: "Nyah, nyah, barren women: I've got a man, two children, AND a dog!"
Now I figured out the real reason:
It's a checklist for serial killers.
A guy saunters out of the darkness and slaughters every person he sees in the car. But maybe one got away. Maybe one's hiding under the body of another. Fortunately, the killer can check the back windshield.
"Let's see. Big male: check. Big female: check. Smallish girl: check. Dog: check. Wait...where's the small boy?"
Then he looks under the car, finds him, and gets the perfect score.
If you were smart, you'd misrepresent the number in your family. You never know when you need a secret child or sibling to kick some ass on your behalf.
Comments
You are so close to the truth. Look carefully at these vans. Note that there are actually no families in them. You have uncovered the vehicle preferred by most murderers. The icons are for bragging. They're kill marks.
Posted by: Daniel | January 9, 2008 11:24 PM
Daniel is exactly right. They're kill marks. Check out my Xterra - you can't even see through the rear windshield any longer.
Posted by: Tom | January 10, 2008 4:25 PM