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"Hello, Psycho!"

Her nasty little cards get quite a reaction from gas-guzzlers

By AMY ALKON

IF YOU HAVE a small penis, I can feel quietly sorry for you. If, however, you have a small penis and compensate by driving an SUV the size of the USS Nimitz, I loathe you and I want you to know. I printed up a small card to put on the windshields of aircraft carrier-sized new SUVs around Venice, where I live and write a syndicated advice column. In case I missed yours, here it is:

"Road-Hogging, Gas-Guzzling, Air-Fouling Vulgarian! Clearly you have an extremely small penis, or you wouldn't drive such a monstrosity. For the adequately endowed, there are hybrids or electrics. 310-798-1817."

The abuse continues at the phone number on the card. There's a recording. Some crazy woman (that would be me) is talking very fast:

"Piggy, piggy, piggy. If you can afford one of those huge new SUVs, you can afford something that doesn't suck all of the air out of the planet and spit it back black. Um, even if you don't drive an electric car, you can get some stylish little sports car that doesn't just chew up the planet. Um, it's really creepy that you drive that thing and I just wanted to let you know."

As you might expect, I got a lot of messages letting me know what I could do with my little cards. Many callers berated me for being wrong about their SUV. Many more berated me for being wrong about their penis.

BEEEEP!

Man No. 1: You're a freak.

BEEP!

Man No. 2: That is so funny. You are such a loser. I had to call to hear what you were about. (He laughs.)

BEEP!

Man No. 3: I just want you to know that my penis is huge. It is really, really, really big. And I bitterly resent that insult to my precious manhood.

BEEP!

Man No. 4: I have this strange card on my very large automobile. I don't have an extremely small penis. I mean, currently my penis is extremely small because it's not in your fucking mouth. I'm sure that won't be hard to do since you have such a big fucking mouth. You should be able to fit my extremely small penis in there.

If it isn't Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

BEEP!

Man No. 5: What about all the women and the single mothers, especially the single mothers, that drive SUVs and haul all the children around? I guess if we were to interpret this for them, we would have to say you felt that they had small, dry, inadequate vaginas. Give me a break.

No, I would imagine that they have big, dry, inadequate vaginas. The penis on the card -- it's a metaphorical small penis. Sadly, the card wasn't big enough for me to be genitally inclusive. Now that we've covered my tendency toward genital discrimination, what do you have against single mothers? (Apart from their big, dry, inadequate vaginas.)

BEEP!

Woman No. 1: Hi, my name is Kimberly and I have four children. And I can't drive a sports car because that just doesn't work for a big family. And I think that you are absolutely vulgar and disgusting...that you exercise your right to free speech by trying to make other people feel bad. What is wrong with you? I have no penis. I have a luscious vagina. And I think you should, like, shove all these cute little cards up your ass, OK? Have a nice day. (Kimberly squeals with delight.)

I think you should, like, try a Jetta station wagon, Kimberly. It'll get you, your family, and your luscious vagina where you're going at the rate of 42 miles per gallon city, 50 mpg highway.

BEEP!

Man No. 6: How would you recommend that we all get our furniture that we deal with lugged around all day? I guess we could strap it to the top of the electric car or the hybrid car. Then it would weigh down the top and run the battery low, and then we'd have to pay people to fix it and replace the batteries. Probably at the end we wouldn't end up saving much anyway, and we'd annoy everybody because we'd be pulled over on the side of the highway broken down and stopping traffic. So you think about that. And you think about other ways to get a message across that are a little bit more intelligent. Thank you.

A more mature person might have put out a card with a brief statement in beautiful script about egrets with black lung disease. Moved as I was by the thought of hundreds of birds in tiny iron lungs, I beelined for the lowest common denominator. I did this not only because I'm obnoxious and immature, but because I was hoping to get other people to spread the cards and the word. Something told me small dicks would travel better than small birds with respiratory ailments.

BEEP!

Woman No. 2: Hello, psycho! We should all be driving hybrids or electrics or little Honda Civics with hatchbacks, but you don't know how half of us came about having our cars. I can't just get rid of this car I have. And it's not a new SUV, OK, so screw off. And worry about yourself.

I'm not just a psycho, I'm a psycho with friends who don't follow directions. These cards were only supposed to go on the most hoggo new SUVs, like Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades. You do have a point that I should be worrying about myself. Especially when a Navigator or Escalade is bearing down on me on the 405.

BEEP!

Man No. 7: (With an Indian accent thicker than day-old lamb vindaloo) Hello, I got this card on my car. What the fuck is your problem? I have eight children. Fucking Americans! Go right to hell, you fucking asshole!

Eight kids? I should have left a box of Trojans on your windshield. Hell, maybe a case.

BEEP!

Man No. 8: I got one of your cards a couple weeks ago. The vehicle the card was put on was actually a work vehicle for security and staff. I don't take offense at all at your labeling it a monstrosity. It is. It's a pain in the ass to drive and very expensive. I actually appreciate your putting the card on the car; agree with you 100 percent. For my personal use, if I can do my part by getting a hybrid car, hey, all the more power to it. I thought I would be able to get more information about the hybrid cars here.

No, this number you're calling is merely the continuing insult line. But this sounds like the perfect time to break for a testimonial about hybrid vehicles, complete with famous TV star:

"My Toyota Prius hybrid electric vehicle gets up to 55 miles per gallon with one-tenth the emissions of an SUV, and it is stylin'!" says Michael Weiss, star of The Pretender on TNT. "It can help you get lucky! And if you can't get lucky in a car with that kind of enviro-friendly karma -- let's face it, partner, you ain't gettin' lucky!"

BEEP!

Man No. 9: Hi, I have the store Cabana Joe's (on Abbott Kinney in Venice). If you leave the card on my new car one more time, I'm going to have a private detective trace your phone number down and I'll file a police report against you. My name is Joe O'Brien, and I don't feel comfortable with a psycho from Venice putting cards on my car, threatening me and calling me names. So, I will file a police report against you and believe me, it's very easy, because you left this phone number, to find out where you're at. So I'm just letting you know that this is gonna take place, OK? Thank you. Buh-bye.

BEEP!

Cabana Joe gets tough: Actually, you know, I don't feel comfortable with the fact that you've put these cards on my car twice, so I'm gonna actually just go to the police department right now and file a report. So, just to let you know what the actions that you've taken have caused, OK? Thank you. Buh-bye.

Y' know, Joe...I had a hard time getting the cops excited about arresting the drug dealers across from my house. You really think they'll clap me in irons for putting a business card on your windshield?

BEEP!

Woman No. 3: Because I use the car to haul things back and forth, it keeps me from taking three trips for the same amount of stuff. Actually, I'm saving gas for the planet, you moron.

Like so many people, you have a hard time packing three scripts, a parking stub and a latte into a Honda Civic. Then again, there are times when only an SUV will do. Like when you're tooling down Wilshire and you pass a buffalo grazing just off Beverly Glen. You can take him out with a tire iron and toss him in the back of your Expedition -- and still have room for a cord of wood, should you be in the mood for a little light logging on the way home from drinks at the Peninsula Hotel.

BEEP!

Man No. 10: How about sucking all the happiness and joy out of the air and spitting blackness in because that's exactly what you're going to do to people when they come out and find these horrible little notes on their car. But, the other thing is the amount of bad will that you're going to promote with your ridiculous little moronic campaign, bringing down the morale of everyone that you touch, spreading misery to those all around you -- maybe even cause people to get in fights and promote violence. That I would consider before I went on this bullshit little campaign.

Imagine my influence on gang warfare. Soon, gangbangers will start whipping out business cards to end disputes: "Freeze, motherfucker, or I'll, I'll...throw this piece of thermographed card stock at you!"

BEEP!

Man No. 11: Hey, I received one of your cards saying that I'm a really creepy person for driving a big V8 engine and let me tell you, it's people like you that really make me want to pollute even more. Actually, I can't wait to go home and just get all the batteries I've saved for the last several years -- just dump them into the ocean -- and just drop cans at random in nature. And when I go hiking just drop all my plastic and nonbiodegradables and Saran Wrap. I mean, I just want to pollute as much as possible because of idiots like you.

Spoken like a man with a "Heal the Bay" sticker on the back of his Chevy Suburban. Those people are my old favorites. My new favorites are those with flags sticking out of their SUV windows. If we didn't need so much Mideast oil for these losers' mobile living rooms, Osama, Saddam and friends would probably be looking for work as goatherds. You wanna be patriotic? Shove that flag up your ass and get on the bus.



More information is available in related articles from The Independent and The Guardian. A version of this story ran April 11, 2002 in the New Times Los Angeles.

Amy Alkon's Column, "Ask the Advice Goddess," appears in over 70 papers across the U.S. and Canada.

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