Bug Decal

My dad's car got broken into a few days ago. I wasn't with him at the time, so the entire story was related to me secondhand, but I still felt a surge of frustration days after and twice-removed from the actual insult.

My dad was having a meal in South Berkeley, and upon his return, the back, passenger-side window was smashed in. Luckily, my dad had taken his laptop and business briefcase with him on a whim because it looked "tempting just sitting in [his] backseat." It was as if fate was smiling on him...sort of.

The thief made off only with a few trinkets, the most expensive being a bluetooth headset. I listened intently over the phone as my dad relayed the story, and I added the obligatory "that's fucked up" when appropriate. Surprisingly though, out of all the things lost out of his car, he ended his story with, "You what's gone though?" His voice sounded more serious from when he was speaking casually about losing his mambo CDs. "The bug sticker."

I was about 10 years old when I was on this bug decal phase. I had this plastic mold with all different kinds of bug shapes. I'd pour in the special paint that would dry into a thin film like a more-translucent fruit roll up. I gave my dad a 5-inch red and green grasshopper with a yellow head as a gift. Humoring me, or so I thought, he put it on the back, passenger-side window.

That bug has been in his last three different cars: even when he junked his old Corolla, even when his old Camry died, each time, he must have sacredly pulled the bug loose and gingerly applied it to his new car.

Perhaps out of machismo or anger, we both goaded each other about how we would enact some physical violence on the thief for being such an ambassador of ill will. Dad said he would punch him. I said I would give him a curb job.

But we were both exaggerating our violent tendencies to hide our disappointment. I doubt my father or I would ever assault someone over a few Gypsy Kings CDs and a plastic bug. But I was mad. Reminders of my childhood are rarely in such an obvious place as my father's automobile; it was almost like a trophy case for my bug—a trophy case that happened to have an engine and four wheels. The robber ruined a gift to a father and a gift from a son to abscond with a mere $50 worth of miscellaneous commuter items.

I guess we were both exaggerating our violent tendencies to hide the fact that our poor bug decal is gone forever, shattered by some fool who had no idea what he was doing when he smashed a 15-year-old window.

I know I usually have pictures to go with my posts, but it seems almost poetic that there are no pictures of the decal—that one of the last childhood and sentimental traditions between my father and me now only exists as a secret, hidden by our exaggerated masculinities.