Sometimes in life, there are things that can't be explained. Pok+â-¬mon are a good example of this. Also, toe rings.
These are the least of our worries, I'm afraid. Recently, while driving through the bustling metropolis of Blountsville, I came upon a yellow rhombus-shaped road sign that featured children playing on a teeter-totter.
What does this mean? Are there herds of wild teeter-totters roaming about the Hoosier countryside that might, at any moment, leap out in front of your vehicle? Perhaps that is why they limit their road crossing to one place in the greater Blountsville area. It's a dying breed, the wild teeter-totter.
Or perhaps there is nothing to do in Blountsville except fantasize about a life in which you could drive to the grocery store without having to make motel reservations for the return trip, so the local children take turns having the community teeter-totter at their house.
Moving the teeter-totter from house to house is surely a complicated process that we common folk will never truly comprehend. I suspect it involves wheels, steam power and a pack mule, although a pack mule is not featured on the sign. The teeter-totter trading system operates on a strict "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Because ignorance is bliss only until it drives you insane, I visited a very thorough (read: nerdy) Web site made by Richard C. Moeur, who, I'm sure, is a top official in the wide world of traffic signs. As it turns out, the sign that I saw was a warning sign. For a playground.
The other warning signs listed, I can understand. The featured warning signs for "deer ahead," "pedestrian crossing," and "danger: falling rocks" make a tremendous amount of sense to me as far as things to be on the lookout for. However, when one sees a yellow warning sign with a teeter-totter on it with no explanation, one cannot help but run through his or her mind and determine that the sign means "teeter-totters ahead," "teeter-totter crossing" or "danger: falling teeter-totters."
Nonetheless, the name of the game is common sense, so I assume that the sign means "watch out for children whose parents have taught them not to run out into the road unless there is a car coming." The DMV could certainly do a better job illustrating this point.
There is a sign in California indicating "freeway pedestrian crossing" that features a man and a woman running and dragging a small girl, hair blowing and faces downcast, presumably across a busy highway.
My humble suggestion to the DMV is to create a new playground warning sign featuring a pigtail-clad girl running and crying while a boy about the same age chases her with a squirt gun the size of a standard corporate water cooler. This is a far more realistic interpretation of an actual warning-worthy situation, and far more likely to happen than two children playing peacefully on a teeter-totter.
If by any chance the DMV gets wind of this suggestion and does not find it necessary, they might want to consider putting up an extra warning sign in Blountsville for the pack mule. Just in case.
Write to Aleshia at aahaselden@bsu.edu
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
