Arresting appearance

When camouflage is about being seen rather than being unseen

I recently saw a car in Albuquerque that, at first glance, presented a certain impression.

It was a Ford Crown Victoria, white, with vivid reflectorized graphics on its sides, bright red and blue, much like the linear graphics on Albuquerque police cruisers. When I first saw it, my immediate impression was that it was a cop car.

But then, it didn’t look quite exactly right. There was something just a little bit off about the graphics. Closer scrutiny revealed that this car wasn’t driven by a cop, but by another sort of emergency-response person. Instead of “POLICE,” the graphic on the side of this car read “I BUY HOUSES,” and a toll-free telephone number was printed on the car in the spot where real Albuquerque cop cars have 911.