A few days ago I was asked the following peculiar question by a Jiffy Lube employee:
“Do you guys make those magnets or something?”
I was equal parts flummoxed and intrigued. (Flummtrigued?)
After confessing that I did not, in fact, have the slightest inkling of an idea as to what he was going on about, things became clear. He pointed out the window at my car, specifically at the homebrew bumper sticker about which I had completely forgotten.
“Oh, that,” I said. “That’s just an ironic statement about the commercialism of American culture overlayed upon the tendency to ‘keep up with the Joneses.’”
He didn’t get it.
“See,” I tried again. “People want to show that they ‘support the troops,’ and they want to do it the same way the Joneses are: by putting a magnet on the back of their car. The thing is, the people who are actually being supported are the ones in Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore who are making them and selling them to us.”
“Basically, while trying to show your support for our troops, you’re actually supporting the Axis of Evil1. Buying magnets isn’t actually helping the troops one bit. Nice, huh?”
He got it then, and seemed really surprised that he hadn’t thought of this before.
I personally find it equal-parts beautiful and sad that entire industries have popped up with soley to provide Americans with foreign-made tchotchkies so that we can show eachother just how much we love our country. Judging by the number of these magnets I see, we really love it a lot.
1: I realize that these countries aren’t really the Axis of Evil, but it sure has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I also realize that there are American companies that make these things as well, but I bet you don’t know whether the ones on your car are made by them or by the afore-mentioned foreign profiteers. Besides, does it really matter who it is that’s cashing in on your natural tendency to want to show people how much you care? Really what matters is that that money might have been better spent in some way that actually can impact someone other than the guy sitting behind you in rush hour.
