Showroom condition [Mc]

Imagine you've just purchased your dream car. You've worked and saved and maybe even borrowed to get the thousands of dollars necessary to acquire your fantasy vehicle.

I don't know what your dream machine is - Lamborghini, Porsche, Corvette, Cadillac, Lexus, Mercedes - in your favorite color scheme, with all the bells and whistles. Fancy wheels, tricked out...your absolute ultimate ride. And it's all yours.

Imagine how you would feel. Imagine how you would care for it. Picture it in your driveway.

Now picture yourself applying a "My other car is a Pinto" bumper sticker on the side of your beautiful car.

Would that be funny? Edgy? Cool? Dumb?

I don't see too many bumper stickers on really expensive cars, especially applied to the paint. Not only do they change the look of a vehicle (usually not for the better), but they ruin the paint if you ever decide to remove them.

People understand that about cars. They don't mind posting their emotions on their cars if they're sure those feelings will never change. But, even then, if they really value their vehicle and value the way it looks, they usually won't apply a sticker to it...or will they?

If you put a bumper sticker on your car, you value the sentiment you are expressing more than you value your vehicle. Perhaps expressing yourself in this way feels very important.

Otherwise, you could stay silent and it wouldn't matter.

But we think it does matter, and it's important to us that every other person on the road knows who are favorite team is, what candidate we're voting for, how we feel about hot-button topics, and where our honor student goes to school. Even if that means that everyone knows we backed the losing candidate or the unpopular position.

Of course, we know our cars won't last forever. Eventually we'll get tired of them, just as we get tired of the stickers we've attached to them. Even our dream car will wear out.

Yet, I think if we really value the car - our fabulously appointed and richly detailed dream car, or even our regular, but shiny family sedan - we won't muck it up with bumper stickers, because we recognize that a car that retains the beauty of "showroom condition" is more valuable than a car with our favorite witty saying hanging off of it.

So...

...how much do you value the body God gave you?

[This articles was inspired by this post on TwentyTwoWords.com]