Signs of our times

There are some signs out there that I am not sure we either need any more, ever needed, or that beg the question if we want them at all. Here are just a few.

'Unleaded gas'. Do we still need this one? We haven’t sold gas with lead in it for about 150 years. It has become a habit to call it that. I remember when we needed to tell the difference between leaded and un-leaded at the gas station. When cars came out with catalytic converters, if you put lead in the tank, something exploded or melted or crapped on your shoes-something. Today, every car has a catalytic converter unless you’re driving an old De Soto from Havana. Even those cars can take unleaded. Let’s quit paying the poor guy in the paint shop for those six letters and just call it ‘gas.’ And really, if you pull into a gas station, do you really need to be reminded its ‘gas’? Maybe if you were that woman who bought the ‘hot’ coffee at McDonald's and then spilled it on herself and sued them because it was, well, hot.

“Walk-in’s welcome’ in front of a palm reader’s house/business. Really? Are there that many people making appointments to have their palms read that you really need to buy a can of red paint, a four by eight sheet of plywood, write those words on it and prop it up on the sidewalk in front of your house? And frankly, how many of us drive down the street and see that sign and say ‘Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I need to stop and have my future told by some total stranger who wants to charge me $30 cash, visa or MasterCard, to tell me I am going to meet a handsome stranger who is going to make a difference in my life?

Tell ya what, I will predict your future right now and save you the $30. You will meet a handsome stranger (their momma thinks their handsome despite the scar that goes from their forehead to their jaw and their lazy eye) and they will make a difference in your life because they are the bag boy at Fry’s and they put the milk on top of the eggs you were planning on having for dinner.

'Home Cooking'. Do I really want to go to a restaurant where they say this? Does that mean they really don’t cook the food in the back but at someone’s home and then ship it to the restaurant? Of course not. It means there is a bed and a small TV on a night stand in the corner behind the walk-in freezer in the back and the cook sleeps there because he was kicked out of his house for drinking shots of rum while being ‘inappropriate’ with the cat. Do we really want that? I think not.

And like the picture at the top of this blog, do we all really live in a neighborhood that has slow children?

My favorite-the plastic cover on my new lawn mower had stenciled on it in about a dozen places ‘this bag is not a toy.’ How many parents give their child that item and say “Hear you go son/daughter, go play with this. STAY away from the hot coffee though!” Any adult who does that needs to be thinned from the herd. Wait, I forgot, there is that woman with the hot coffee from McDonald's.

I guess there are those people out there that need this.

Look, I’m just making some observations here. I guess we just need to be reminded that there are some among us who need a little help—a lot of the time.