Its Not Always Rainbows and Butterflies

Today Cousin has the day off. After about a gallon of coffee, she packs up the two kidlets (3 and almost 1) into the Jeep for some pre-Thanksgiving errands.

They pass a car with a rainbow sticker.

Cousin's Boy:Let's get a rainbow for our car!

This is only funny if you know a little background about Cousin and I.

We have always had a hearty laugh at the rainbow stickers. (For a little more on my opinion about these bumper stickers and others, see my post "Bumper to Bumper" on A Random Walk, November 10th). Once on a trip to Manhattan we saw an Asian male driving a Honda Accord that was literally covered with lesbian propaganda; a rainbow sticker, an Equality sign (the Human Rights Campaign's logo), and various stickers claiming the driver's alumnus organization (you guessed it... Smith College). Anyway, the only reason the man's national origin comes into the story is that we created an entire fictionalized account for how he had come to the point of driving this clearly previously-owned-by-a-lesbian automobile. Maybe he didn't know those cultural cues? Maybe he didn't realize that Smith was an all-women's college? Maybe he didn't put two and two together and realize that the seller was a lesbian who felt the need publicly announce her sexual-orientation-and-therefore-political views through the vehicle of her vehicle. Maybe he figured, "I, too, like girls! And heck! This car's a good deal!"... Maybe he just hadn't gotten around to taking the stickers off? Maybe his daughter or wife was a lesbian?...

We howled all the way to Penn Station!

The other reason its funny is that when we're together, we often are mistaken as a couple. And we never dispute the stranger's misunderstanding. The latest occurrence of this phenomenon was this past summer at REI. (Okay, okay, not a good test-case for this phenomenon given that it is probably the second leading retailer to lesbians aside from Home Depot).

I was holding the baby and our checkout gal said:
Are you having fun wif your two mommies?

(imagine Dori's voice in Finding Nemo "Mister Grumpy Gills!")

Cousin and I nearly burst out laughing.

I think I know what to get them for Christmas!