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Bitchin & Moaning
SIGNS
of Our Time
By Guest Columnist Sharon Hightower
WHILE DRIVING HOME THIS
morning after dropping off my
grandson at school, I saw a sign on my
street that I’d noticed some weeks ago.
It reads New Residential Homes with
an arrow underneath. And I’m left
wondering what other kind of homes
are there? I thought by definition or
at least implication a home was a residence.
Am I confused here? Residential
Home. Well, ok.
Signs often amuse me. Or
maybe they just confuse me.
At the end of our street where
it intersects at a dead-end
with a rather busy street, there are
two-speed limit signs as you turn onto
my street going west. The first is your
typical black and white speed limit
sign and reads 35 in big letters. OK.
But not five feet away is another sign,
the yellow kind of caution sign that
reads 20 mph and shows a very curvy
arrow cautioning that the road is
indeed curved. And almost every time
I drive by I wonder: which is it? Can
I drive 35 or do I need to go only 20?
Help. Also, I wonder who put up the
signs. Was it CalTrans? Did they put
up both? Is it a joke? Or maybe an insider
gag as most streets in Fallbrook
are curved.
When I lived in Oceanside, there
were a couple of signs I really loved.
One shows a wave and above it the
word BEACH with an arrow pointing
up indicating straight ahead. And as
you can almost see the water from the
sign’s location, it strikes me as funny.
Do people really need a sign pointing
them to the ocean less than a block
away? Really?
The other sign was scary. It read
TSUNAMI route. I'm sure it didn't
mean that's where the tsunami would
go, but rather that is the way one
should go in the event of a tidal wave.
But the really scary thing is that I've
only ever seen one sign. No further
direction. It's like those detour signs
that take you off your familiar route,
but don't tell you where to go nor how
to get back on the street from which
you were being detoured.
I work at Palomar College, and
it has gotten into unisex bathrooms.
And the sign on the facility nearest
my office reads "men, women, and
shows a handicapped drawing." It's
as if folks in a wheelchair are a third
gender.
I don't like the signs one often
sees inside public bathrooms that say
employees must wash their hands before
returning to work. Gosh. I hope
so. Especially if I’m in McDonald’s or
Jack-in-the-Box; anywhere you eat.
Do you remember pay toilets? I
don’t see them anymore, but I remember
returning from a long road
trip back from Vegas and all four
women piled out of the car and into
the bathroom. I guess we’d spent all
our money in Vegas because no one
had a dime, so we had to get change.
Meanwhile, my feisty friend said she
was just going to crawl under while
my Mom cussed at the closed doors.
My mother’s cursing consisted of
“darn” and “hell and damnation,” so
when she said “damn,” I about peed
my pants. The sign? It read insert $.10.
And that story reminds me of
another road trip when I was about
seven. We were going east this time
and had gotten out to stretch our legs
somewhere outside of Albuquerque,
New Mexico. And we were standing
in a dirt area near the car, and my aunt
apparently disturbed a hill of red ants
which quite quickly began crawling up
her legs. I may never forget her jumping
around, yelling "my privates, my
privates." Sign? No there was no sign,
but perhaps there should have been.
I was in the hospital last
week – the pretty new one on
the hill in Escondido – and
as I prepared to leave I was
following the exit signs having gotten
thoroughly lost in my visits first to
the lab and then the x-ray department
within- between stops in the examining
area. A security gal must have
read my face, and she pointed to a set
of double doors. "The exit is through
there," she said. And as I passed her,
added, "It would help to have a sign
on the doors.” As I walked further on,
she remarked to the guard standing
on the other side of the hallway, that
when the hospital was first opened,
they objected to any signage. Hmmm?
There’s an interesting sign in the
laundromat that I use in town. It reads
DO NOT put any person in this washer.
Well darn. I thought I was going to
scrub up my husband. He works outside
and is often so dirty I don’t like
him to come into the house.
Guess that plan is out.
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