Our neighborhood cars with expired stickers have had their windshields defaced by a citizen who believes that people shouldn't let their stickers expire.
There is a lot of angst expressed on our neighborhood elist about the individual who is performing these deeds.
I suggested that, like the pig that builds the brick house, why not just keep our stickers up-to-date and not have our windshield defaced. My argument fell short, because (in the original fairy tale) the wolf did not go away, but rather went into the house through the chimney and became soup. (I can't fathom why this is an appropriate kid's story.)
It was pointed out to me that the citizen (a.k.a defacer) also defaces some properties being renovated, scribbling on renovators' walls and fences that they don't have the proper permits. Perhaps it is a matter of the permits not being clearly visible, or perhaps the defacer is just spiteful. Maybe the permits need to be bigger or better lit. I don't know.
What concerns me about this situation is that we are fighting fire with fire (defacing with anger). This is the stuff that wars are made of, and we all know that we have enough of that. And not just country angry at country, not just one family angry with another family, but even one family member angry with another.
I'm not sure of the rationale that Mr. Defacer is using. Perhaps he feels this is his compassionate response to the dangers to life and limb when an unsafe vehicle hits the highway, or when renovations are done without the proper authorization. Perhaps he is a believer and advocate of civil disobedience, and is doing what he believes is right.
But why the angst? What does that accomplish? Mr. Defacer scrawled on my windshield. It took an hour to clean it off. And then it took a day to let the anger subside. The anger is something we don't need to create. The birds are leaving me gifts on my windshield. When we are able to talk (they are busy fellows) I apologize to them for not providing a Johnny-on-the-Spot. But is this a cause for anger?
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Kim, my solar plexus responds, as I fight to keep a charitable point of view, as you have succeeded in doing. I've crossed over that threshold (a function of grandparenthood?) to where I fret the day long about what's happening to our world, how many points of Armageddon are slow-smoldering... I'm grasping onto any shred of faith that there is a critical enough mass of evolved collective conscience to drag us safely past each point of no return... 'Twas ever thus, those closest to me assure. Perhaps; but the stakes are ever higher.
Yes: anger, instinctively, is no motivator, except to further anger.
What was the defacer using as his medium? H.
Word is that he was using a permanent magic marker (though I can't imagine it was that hard to remove), which isn't really my point. I was trying to get across that this problem was easily solved by simply keeping one's stickers in date. It is also a win, win. You can rest assured that your car is not polluting the environment (more than it should), that your breaks and lights work, and that you won't have to be cleaning your windshield. So many problems are not this easy to solve.
My wife said an earlier post claimed that in a photo the defacer was identified as a woman.
I don't think we know if it is a woman, or a man, or even if it is one individual.
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