As I was driving out of a parking lot today, I noticed a “Baby on Board” sticker on a parked car. I first asked myself, why do people brand their cars like that? It’s a waste of money and in a couple years the baby will grow into a toddler, and that sticker will make a liar out of the driver. Unless, the owner of the car intends to become a baby factory[1].

But what if there really is a baby on board that car?!

What if the baby is being cooked alive in the Texas summer heat, and I just drove by not knowing that an innocent life is being extinguished by a terribly negligent parent?

What would I think if I saw it on the news? Would I be sad that I could have stopped my car and checked to make sure there truly wasn’t a baby on board?

Could that sticker be a posted warning to the public the owner practices a deranged form of survival of the fittest? Could abandoning the baby in the car be a deadly test inspired by the ancient Spartans to see if it’s tough enough to survive?

Should I call the fire department to check it out? Afterall, there is a posted sign stating a baby is somewhere on board that car. We have a moral and legal responsibility to tear that car apart until we find that baby.

If the fire department does tear the car apart and discovers there wasn’t a baby in there after all, the owner should be responsible for the damages caused investigating because there was a posted sign indicating a baby was on board[2].

I remember when I was a kid, a vile creature some people could mistake as a stepmother, purposely left me in a car for hours in the Texas heat[3]. That never would have happened if cell phones and social media were around back then, because the risk of being publicly shamed or charged for criminal neglect would have been an all too real possibility.

Maybe that’s why I’m thinking so much about that simple sticker on a car, that’s obviously going to be parked for hours. Maybe my childhood experience may have made me overly sympathetic to a child being cooked alive by the Texas heat, which, nowadays has been made even worse by global warming. Despite the mere fact that such an endangered baby exists solely because I read the message of a bumper sticker metaphorically.

Or is there really a baby in there?

We’ll never know until someone looks in the car.

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[1] Baby Factory – I just thought of what may be considered a real baby factory, an “axolotl tank” from Frank Herbert’s Dune universe.

[2] I wonder if that would be a good legal defense when the angry owner of the car sues the good Samaritan, who was concerned for the safety of a baby?

[3] Being cooked alive in a car as a child may be why I can tolerate the steam room much longer than most others. Should I be thankful for that?