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Stupid
Signs by Peary
Perry | |
The
other day I got to noticing how many signs I passed in our fair city that really
made no sense at all. You’ve seen them, the ones that you read and then have to
do a double take because your mind is saying… ‘what the heck does this mean?’
I
passed one this morning for a Mexican restaurant who advertises ‘handmade food’.
Is there any other kind? What is the alternative here; would it be machine made
food? How about restaurants that advertises …. ‘the world’s best…..(fill in the
blank)…’ who grades whatever it is they are selling?. Surely someone hasn’t been
to all of the places in the world that sell hamburgers and tested them and then
awarded that honor to any one place in particular. If they have then they probably
qualify as one of the world’s fattest (or is that now heaviest?) people on our
planet.
Here’s another food sign that makes me wonder. This one says… ‘real
fruit’. This is one of those smoothie places that seem to be on every other corner.
Is there such a thing as fake fruit or unreal fruit? I think fruit is fruit. It
either is fruit or it’s not fruit. You can’t advertise (I guess you could, but
it would be misleading) some drink contains real apple juice and then use hamburger
meat instead. I wouldn’t buy it, but then, I might be behind the times. This may
be a new trend I’m not aware of.
I was talking this over with one of my
sons and he pointed out that every time he’s gotten some award or certificate
from some training program it always says that it’s…. ‘Suitable for framing’.
I suppose there are certificates that aren’t suitable for framing, but to me those
are personal choices that should be left up to the person who obtained the award.
They either want to frame it or they don’t. It’s their decision.
Knowing
that there is generally a web site for just about everything you can imagine,
I Googled up …stupid signs and was pointed off to www.stupidsigns.com which is
a good place to visit for a laugh now and then.
I’ll share a few of the
ones I happened to see while I was on their site. One sign advises employees as
follows… ‘do not put body parts in the trash chute.’ I’m wondering where the body
parts could have come from in the first place and have they had this problem for
any length of time. Is this something that they have had to have some kind of
company meeting where they gather everyone into the conference room and read off
a policy prohibiting throwing body parts in the trash chutes? Another one advised
… ‘river rescue’…..it went on to say that if you had fallen into the river and
needed the fire or police department to help you, you should call a certain number.
First off I’m not aware of too many cell phones that work if you fall into the
river and secondly do they intend for you to jot this number down and carry it
with you in case you think you might fall into the river and need someone to help
get you out?
Here’s one….I’ve seen this one in our town…posted downtown…big
sign that says… ‘No standing.’ What does this mean? You have to lie down while
passing in front of this area or crawl as you pass by. If so how far out and away
does this so called … ‘no standing’ zone extend? For this to be effective it should
say something like… ‘no standing within twenty five feet of this sign.’ That’s
still not clear but better if you ask me.
I saved the best one for last….this
probably appeared on some municipal park. The sign says… ‘Soccer not allowed…
soccer can only be played in the archery range.’ Someone needs to rethink this
one; otherwise the city is going to have a huge liability suit on their hands.
One final comment, it’s obvious that a lot of signs are the result of some previous
activity that may or may not have resulted in some form of litigation. When you
see signs advising not to feed or move alligators, you have to think that the
reason for this is that someone did this before the sign went up and it was erected
as a warning for the rest of us. The real story here is why the sign was put up
in the first place?
© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
Letters
From North America - September 16, 2009 column
Syndicated weekly
in 80 newspapers
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