I have a couple of bumper stickers on my car, one says “Defend America, Defeat Bush” and another that says “George Bush Is A Punk Ass Chump,” which was a gift to me one year for Christmas, and I have never had anyone respond to them in any way while driving, until today. I was driving down North Avenue and suddenly I hear a beep and I look around and there’s this guy in a car next to me, and he’s looking at me with this smug smile, and I’m wondering what his problem is. He’s got the bright blue dress shirt on and he’s kind of pudgy and everything about him screams businessman, except that by the looks of his car, not so good of one.

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I look over at him to see what he wants and he holds up a laminated copy of the Sun-Times with the giant headline “Bush Wins” on it. Since I was driving I couldn’t be sure whether it was from 2004 or 2000, but I would assume 2004 since he didn’t actually win in 2000.

Now, I’m wondering, what’s more embarrassing, the fact that this man carries around a laminated copy of this newspaper or that he’s actually still proud of it? I mean, of all the times to be cheerleading for George Bush, this is not one of them. But there he was, chuckling and giving me this look like it was he who actually won something, and I had to laugh. I would have loved to have asked him about his President’s many failures and what he thought of them, but a Loyalist is a Loyalist, and so now at least I knew what they looked like.

I eventually pulled over and went to a sandwich shop, where a very cute girl took my order. As I waited for my change she looked at me and said “I like your pin.” I forget that I’m wearing it, but this pin is of Bush with devil horns coming out of his head, and so I thanked her and thought of telling her what had just happened but decided to let it go. She was the second pretty girl behind a counter to compliment the pin in the past two weeks, and so I think about it and am okay with that. Balance is achieved.