Not quick enough on the draw

Twice in the past two days I have cursed myself for keeping my cell phone in my pants pocket while I'm driving.

Yesterday, there was a perfect opportunity to illustrate the point that if you're a business, you have to be a teeny bit careful of who you decide to blow off as a customer. There used to be a saying about picking a fight with someone who ran a newspaper, because you didn't want to get into it with someone who bought ink by the barrel.

I guess the updated version of that is: Don't go toe-to-toe with someone who owns one of those instant-sign franchises. I was driving down the main drag in a suburb just outside D.C. when a bright green sign in a storefront caught my eye. "[Name of humongous national bank here] is a ripoff," it read. "Close your account now!"

I'm not sure that people make their banking decisions based on large signs in storefronts, but dude certainly gets the message across that way.

Then, today, I was behind your standard redneck pickup, appropriately festooned with American flag, NRA, country music, NASCAR, etc. stickers. However, it also had prominently displayed one of those 01.20.09 bumperstickers. Which leads one to wonder: Just who's in that 29%, anyway?