What's Your Sign?

While the mental Snark backlog swells dangerously due to that durned personal life, I share with you, ever briefly, a recent sampling of comical signs around the city, brought to you by the Snark Ascending Bureau of Comical Signs Recently Sampled Around The City (not associated with the Snark Ascending City of Comical Bureaus Recently Signed Around The Sample, which, if you even dare think its name in conjunction with this post, will henceforth sue your ass).

First up is a pair of signs courtesy of a Chinese restaurant on the Up-Up-Upper West Side. One of these reads, simply, "RESTROOMS ARE FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY." This much is straightforward, but then there are the teddy bears -- a pair of them, anime-style cute, lying on their bellies, expressionless, as if to say ... well, something. Possibly to illustrate that they were booted forcibly out of the restaurant, onto their bellies, for attempting to use the bathroom without buying anything. I feel for them. But not so much as I feel for the cute bathing seals on the OTHER sign, the one that says, "PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR." The clear implication here is that, if you do NOT use the other door, you will turn into a seal and somebody will bathe you. We must all strive to avoid this fate.

Next up is a sign that graces an eating establishment further downtown. Out of concern for my well-being, I will refer to this restaurant as "Big Al's," so as not to incur the wrath of certain organized organizations (in other words, so as not to tell you that its name is actually "Big Vinny's.") This sign, clearly a gift of the City Dept. of Ill-Placed "Quotation Marks," reads as follows: OUR FOOD IS "TOP" QUALITY.

And of course the pièce de résistance (literally, "this one was OF COURSE on campus"), which I again swear I am reprinting here verbatim:

1 IN 5 SEXUALLY ACTIVE TEENAGE GIRLS BECOMES PREGNANT.
YOU CAN HELP.

Okay, but I might feel awkward.



©2009 Nicola McEldowney
The Snark Ascending