Bitter Infertile on board!

WARNING: This is a rant about child-centric automobile adornments.  If you happen to have child-centric adornments on your car, please know that I still love you and it's not my intention to offend you.  Even my siblings have some of this crap on their cars and I still speak to them. ;)

As I was pulling into the parking lot at work this morning I was behind a guy with a license plate that read "2X A DAD."  I immediately scoffed.  For one, my personal opinion is that vanity plates are a waste of money, but I can appreciate a funny or cute one.  For example there's someone driving around with a plate that says "GR8YTB8."  The guy is a surfer.  Get it?  Great White Bait!  I think that's clever.  But the people living in the town where I work tend to be long on excess funds and short on imagination, so it's rare I see a vanity plate that doesn't come across as, well, vain.  Or superior.  (A couple other regulars I see are: "heart R HI IQ" on a Smart car, and "MY 60MPG" on a Prius.  Yes, we get it, you get good gas mileage.  I still don't think it's particularly "smart" to drive around in a car the size and sturdiness of an aluminum can.)

For two, I'm just getting so tired of seeing automobiles slathered in advertisements about the driver's offspring and fertility.  Look, I get that they're proud of their kids, I'd be proud of mine too if I had any, but it's just so over the top.  And guess what?  90% of the population can have kids, so procreating is not exactly a notable achievement, Mr. 2X A DAD.  You had sex and children are often the result of that.  I'm happy you're doing a good job raising your kids, but I'm sure you'll excuse me if I don't pull my car over and applaud you for it.  Did my grandma drive around with a sign that said "9X A MOM?"  No she did not, and raising 9 kids is a helluva lot more impressive than your two.  It's your job to raise them to the best of your ability, not a special talent worthy of sharing with the world.

For three (and let's be honest here - this is obviously the main reason I scoffed), it's a well-established fact that I'm a bitter Infertile and sarcasm and scoffing are like second languages to me.

So how many different ways do parents pat themselves on the back (or bumper) for rearing their kids?  Let's count.  Besides the cheesy license plates, there's...

1. Stick-figure family decals, sometimes even including everyone's names, as if the parents have never seen an after school special warning kids not to tell strangers their names in case the stranger is a predator.  I can't stand those stickers.  There was one time, though, when I saw a car with just a male stick figure and a female stick figure clinking wine glasses and my heart surged with joy!  I would totally get something like that.

2. Bumper stickers - and not just the ones that say "My child is an honor student at fill-in-the-blank school," (please, is every kid an honor student these days? Those things are everywhere!) but other super clever ones like the "Got Twins?" sticker I'm always ending up behind on my way out of my neighborhood.  Sigh.  A. No, I don't "got twins," but I do got endo!  And B. Though the "Got Milk?" ad campaign was decent for its time, it's now stale and cliche.  Can we please agree to retire it?

3. The "baby on board" window signs.  I don't quite understand the purpose of these.  Are they supposed to make me drive slower?  Be more careful than usual?  Because I was totally going to rear-end someone this one time just for giggles, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw that sign stuck on their rear window.  Or maybe it's an advertisement targeted at Infertiles who are in the market for free unwanted babies?  If that's the case I might change my mind about this one.

4. Personalized license plate frames.  I especially loathe the ones that "keep score."  You know the ones I'm talking about, "Mom's scoreboard: Girls 2, Boys 1."  (Or if you're the Duggars: Girls 243, Boys 198.)  I'd like to get one that says, "Infertile's scoreboard: Beers 6, Martinis 3," but that might attract the wrong kind of attention... the kind with blue and red lights and sirens.

Hmm... well that's all I can think of.  One day I will have a kid and maybe this stuff won't annoy me anymore, but for now I might as well have fun with it!