Two-Minute Solution, 18 Months Later

The problem? A simple annoyance. I have a handicap parking sticker. Why it's referred to as a sticker when it's a hanger card, I couldn't say. When parked, it hangs from the rear view mirror. One is not supposed to drive with it in that position because somebody is concerned that it obstructs vision. So, it needs a spot.

In my car, that's on the dashboard on the driver's side, up in the corner next to the windshield, where the dash curves down a bit, so gravity helps keep it from sliding onto the seat or floor. That works perfectly, keeping it in sight to help remind me to actually use it and not risk a very expensive ticket. I have walked away from the car without hanging it. At least if I do forget, it's visible if some cop cares to actually look inside at the dash before writing the ticket.

However, while driving, when I take a sharp corner, inertia flings the card across the dash to some other resting place somewhere between the middle of the dash and the other corner, places much harder to reach once parked when I need to hang it again. The card is smooth, the dash is smooth, and away it goes. I do not drive that recklessly. It's just a lack of friction. Honest!

I got an idea several months back. Do not mistake this as being the same thing as implementing the idea several months back. No, that took until this week. I bought a brand new bottle of rubber cement, having ascertained the the previous bottle was as empty as if it had never held a drop of the stuff. Pretty neat trick, that. I would have expected at least a dried dollop on the bottom, wherever the bottom was in its resting place for the last few years since its last use. But, nope. Nothing.

Nor can you infer an instantaneous sequence of events from the ascertainment of need to actual procurement of replacement supply. That took a full day and a half. Then you must factor in the day the new bottle sat in the shopping bag on the table before transfer to my lunch cooler, and an additional day before its actual use. (Lest you find these gaps an anomaly, I must in all honesty inform you that the jar sat in the car another full day after use, before returning in my cooler to the house, and in fact still sits on the kitchen counter next to my cooler awaiting its transfer to the storage spot the other jar sat in for years and where I would in fact expect to locate it for its next use.)

Once I found myself with a few minutes on my hands, I took the rubber cement and applied a generous layer in a patch across the dashboard where the hanger card would have to touch it somewhere when tossed into its usual spot after parking use. After letting it fully dry, about two hours to get past tacky at that thickness, I set the card back in its usual spot. The rubber grips it just enough that it doesn't slide a bit while driving.

A little finger friction removed the bit I accidentally smeared on the inside of the windshield. (Both places.) And should I ever sell the car, more rubbing should remove the rubber patch as if it never was, except for the unexplained lack of dust clinging to the plastic.

Of course, since I average about 75,000 miles a year, I've never yet sold a car once it's been used for work, not once in 25 years. I'm just not up to the challenge of trying to convince somebody that there's life left in the old buggy when it's showing close to 400,000 miles on the odometer. I feel really bad when they laugh at me.