This Week's Column

Active Hero Since 2004

July 29, 2008

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On my back passenger window I have a sticker from the FOP, Fraternal Order of Police, indicating that I am an active supporter -- or, at least I was in 2004. This basically means that someone from the FOP called me while I was watching TV one day and I pledged to donate five dollars in order to get the person off of the phone. If that is not support, I am not sure what is. So, after making my promise, I received a bill in the mail along with the sticker that I was supposed to put on my car so that people who walk by it know that I am a sucker, I mean, supporter. Over the years I have felt a special connection to other cars with FOP stickers, especially stickers from 2004. I don't like to associate with those 2003 supporters, who are obviously too cheap to update their stickers...

Something tells me that I should have kept contributing to the FOP each year in order to get new stickers. I am not sure how long this "supporter" title is supposed to last. However, I am looking forward to getting pulled over by a cop so that I can try out this four-year-old sticker. "Excuse me, I don't think you want to give me a ticket. You must not have seen that 2004 FOP sticker on my back window," I will say...

"True, you are a real hero and certainly an active supporter," the cop will obviously reply. "I am going to rip up this ticket. And while I am here, is there anything I can get you? Like a badge or a gun or an iced coffee?"

"No, no, don't worry about it," I will then say. "I can't be tied down with those things. I need to drive around and show off this sticker. I am, after all, a 2004 active supporter."

I have this whole conversation planned perfectly. I've also been wondering about college alumni stickers. I've had my own alma mater -- Boston College -- planted on my rear window for several years. People assume that I graduated from there, which is fine since I did. But does that mean that I can put 18 stickers on my rear window and people will think that I went to each of those schools? Actually, will 18 stickers make me seem really educated because I went to all those colleges, or really indecisive for the same reason?

In fact, I don't think colleges even need to give out diplomas anymore -- just give out rear window stickers instead. This upcoming Christmas, maybe I will buy people stickers from the colleges of their choice so that they can pretend to go to those schools. I mean, no one -- no one -- is crazy enough to put a sticker on his or her car from a school that he or she did not graduate from. And if a person does that, then that person deserves to graduate from that school for having the brains to figure out that it is not necessary to spend over $100,000 on a college education -- just one dollar on a sticker. But I can not be bogged down with all of this right now. After all, I am a 2004 FOP supporter. I have to save the world and whatnot...

But I digress.