The Mysterious Disappearance and Return of the Obama Sign

Back before the primaries, my hubby and I put an Obama sign on our lawn. It stayed--proudly showing our hope for change to all and sundry driving down our street--for about 2 1/2 months. Then, one day toward the end of March, it just up and disappeared. Gone. At first we thought it got dragged down the road by an errant snowplow, but after searching, it was nowhere to be found. We were a little sad--we'd wanted the souvenir (we still have stuff from Clinton in '92, for god's sake), but life moved on.

When we read all those stories about lawn signs being stolen (from both parties), we figured that's what had happened to us. And in fact, given how in-the-tank my town was/is for Obama, it makes sense now that I saw very few Obama signs anywhere (only the large, too-hard-to-steal ones). I did see a good handful of McCain/Palin signs, even though I never met a supporter of theirs at the local PTA meeting or down at Peet's Coffee. Were we Obamaniacs all victims of rampant sign theft?

Fast forward many months, after the election. Last week, out of the blue, what should turn up on our front steps but the sign? No question that it was ours (it was an early-edition sign, fairly straightforward, no Biden, etc.). No note. No "I'm sorry." Just back in all it's (slightly wrinkled) glory. My husband took it inside the house and put it in our curio cabinet, where we keep our one-of-a-kind precious memories.

What brought you back, sign? A fit of remorse? A desire to change, along with the government? A realization that having a stack of your neighbors' political signs makes you out of step in these "can't we all just get along?" times? (Downright creepy, actually.)

Whatever the reason, I'm glad you did. Thanks--but next time, get your own sign, please.

Note: I found this photo on the website, Embrace Adventure. I didn't have a chance to photograph my own sign in the spring, because I didn't know someone was going to STEAL IT.