All About Stickers

Boston is all about stickers. There are some non-profit organizations I’m afraid to join (e.g., a prominent beach reservation) because they’ll make me put a sticker on my car just to park there. I’m willing to financially support them and I certainly want to park at the beach, but I don’t want to put another sticker on my car.

I already have to tolerate the big, honking registration sticker that consumes the far right end of my windshield. When I first moved to Boston and the Inspection Garage guy slapped the sticker on, I was mortified. I thought for sure I’d get into accidents because the sticker was a visual distraction and its size obstructed my view of the road. He told me “I’d get used to it.” Three years on, I haven’t.

Buying my car in Southern California was a mistake in the sense that it set my expectations too high. Following the example of other West Coast car owners, I learned to treat my car very well. For instance, on Fridays I’d drop off my car while I played tennis, knowing she was in the skilled hands of multiple car washers (not just “manual labor”). In Boston, I’m lucky if I get two guys working on my car. And they rub it with the wrong purpose: to get the water off. They don’t treat her like the fine machine she is deserving of respect.

Needless to say, when I lived in California, there were no laws forcing stickers on my vehicle; just a couple of small, discreet stickers on my license plate. Why can’t it be like that here?

Parking stickers are the biggest scourge in Boston. I’ve fought the good fight. For the few residences where I really needed them, I simply “taped” the sticker on. Other times when I knew there really was no security and the sticker was joke, I simply threw the sticker away.

Right now, I won’t park on the street even though it’s free because it requires a huge Resident Parking Sticker to be prominently placed in the sight line of my windshield. What a ridiculous requirement. So I pay for off-the-street parking and I thank God I have the means to do so.

I promised my car when we left SoCal that I’d always take care of her. She was badly scratched in the blizzards of Colorado and I’ve sadly dented her with my lack of parallel parking skills here in narrow Boston. Still, I refuse to sticker up my car. Every time I donate money to a worthwhile organization, the first thing they do? Send me a member sticker for my car.