Sign posted in a hotel I stayed at recently:
“HEY!”
“WHAT?”
“DO YOU SEE THAT RED THING ON THE WALL?”
“THE THING THAT’S FLASHING?”
“YEAH, WITH THE PIERCING HORN BLASTS COMING OUT OF IT. WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT IS?”
“I DON’T KNOW. IS IT FOR PAGING SOMEONE?”
It could be so many things…
“WELL, IT SAYS ‘FIRE’ ON IT.”
“RIGHT, SO…?”
“SO MAYBE THAT’S A CLUE.”
“OH, LIKE MAYBE ‘FIRE’ IS AN ACRONYM?”
“EXACTLY. DO YOU SMELL SMOKE?”
*sniff sniff* ‘AS A MATTER OF FACT I DO. THAT’S STRANGE. ANYWAY, WHAT MIGHT F.I.R.E. STAND FOR, DO YOU THINK?”
“HM… HM… TOUGH TO SAY. IT’D BE EASIER TO THINK WITHOUT THAT SIREN BLARING.”
“YEAH, IT’S PRETTY ALARMING. WOW, THAT SMOKE SMELL IS GETTING STRONG. I HOPE NOTHING’S ABLAZE IN THE HOTEL.”
“I’M SURE THEY’D LET US KNOW IF THERE WAS A PROBLEM.”
“FULLY…INTEGRATED…RELAY…”
“NO, I DON’T THINK YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK.”
“WELL, WHAT DO— WHOA! LOOK AT EVERYONE FLOODING DOWN THE STAIRS. TAKE IT EASY THERE, PEOPLE!”
“YEAH, THEY’RE NOT GOING TO CHARGE YOU IF YOU DON’T CHECK OUT AT EXACTLY 11:00!”
“Ha ha! Good one.”
“WHAT?!”
“I SAID, ‘HA HA’!”
“FFFF… FFFF… FAIR… FUTURE… FFF… WOW, ARE YOU HOT?”
“YEAH, IT’S CRAZY HOT IN HE– OH MY GOD! A FIRE!”
“WHAT??!!”
“OVER THERE! A FIRE!”
Look at all those firemen! Must be a convention, or something!
“OH NO! WHY ISN’T THE FIRE ALARM GOING OFF? WAIT, DO YOU THINK THAT’S THE FIRE ALARM?”
“LOOK AROUND, MAYBE THERE’S A **cough** SIGN TO TELL US!”
“OH, MAYBE THAT’S WHAT THE ‘F’ IN F.I.R.E STANDS FOR! FIRE… IN… **cough, cough** RESIDENCE… EMERGENCY! MAYBE?”
“’EVACUATE’?”
“YOU THINK WE SHOULD?”
“NO, I’M SAYING MAYBE THE ‘E’ STANDS FOR ‘EVACUATE.’”
“HEY, HERE’S A SIGN! OH! OH, OKAY! YEAH! THIS SIGN SAYS THAT THAT’S THE FIRE ALARM!”
“OH, THANK GOD! WHAT DO WE DO?”
“IT SAYS ‘IN THE EVENT OF FIRE, USE THE STAIRS’.”
“TO GO WHICH WAY? UP OR DOWN?”
“DOESN’T SAY.”
“AW, MAN! WHY ISN’T THERE ANOTHER SIGN??!!”
The Byronic Man 
April 13, 2015 at 4:40 am
Some people need it that obvious.
April 13, 2015 at 7:21 am
A comic I worked with for a week had a whole bit about exit signs. “We live in a country that will put up a sign letting you know your exit is in 2 miles. Then another one telling you that your exit is 1 mile. A half mile. A sign letting you know your exit is next. And then a sign telling you that *This* is your exit. SO WHY ARE YOU IN THE LEFT LANE?”
April 13, 2015 at 2:54 pm
That is my number one pet peeve about drivers. Why, why, why, are they still in the left lane?
April 13, 2015 at 6:33 am
In England, all directions on signs are really wordy. By the time you read to the bottom of it, we could all be dead.
April 13, 2015 at 7:22 am
The signs are probably just concerned about seeming rude.
April 13, 2015 at 6:47 am
Well I guess you should be happy you got out of this confusing, frustrating experience safely and can now laugh about it. It’s sad that we even need all those signs to tell us what to do – and that someone else even thinks we need them! What’s happening to common sense?
April 13, 2015 at 11:20 am
Whenever I see things like that, what always gets me is that it wouldn’t be there unless something happened that made people decide they had to.
April 13, 2015 at 11:32 am
Yep, changes put in place always come after a disaster or something else happens. Interesting point you bring up. And congrats on easing back into blogging between all of those diaper changes – can’t be easy!
April 13, 2015 at 7:04 am
“Warning: Coffee may be hot.”
In other words, the reason is lawyers.
April 13, 2015 at 9:44 am
I think they should put that warning on the underside of the cup. Just for funsies.
April 13, 2015 at 11:19 am
I’m sure you’re right. And the decision to make this sign would be one of those conversations where the only reasonable response it to go insane.
April 13, 2015 at 7:04 am
LOL! How droll, I loved this!
April 13, 2015 at 7:48 am
Wasn’t there a comedian years ago who did a routine called “Here’s your sign”? Can’t think of his name, but I bet he’d have a field day with this one. 🙂
April 13, 2015 at 8:00 am
Yeah, I remember him! Wasn’t that Larry the Cable Guy?
April 13, 2015 at 11:03 am
I just saw him on a heartburn advertisement. That’s some sign. 🙂
April 13, 2015 at 11:20 am
Close – Bill Engvall.
April 13, 2015 at 8:06 am
OMG I hate acronyms! I love that the alarm “sounds like a horn”. If only it sounded like one of those clown horns it’d make running for your life so much more entertaining!
April 13, 2015 at 11:22 am
I do too. Especially strained acronyms that make a word. SCUBA? Fine. NASA? Great. But when it’s TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More! or the latest standardized test that they’ve spent weeks to make the name spell “Winner” or “Smart”? Gyugh.
April 13, 2015 at 9:24 am
OOOH. That’s what they’re for. I though they were for the parties they have in the hallway.
On a serious note, I’m kinda not surprised. I’ve seen a lot as a teacher.
April 13, 2015 at 11:26 am
I heard that.
April 13, 2015 at 9:51 am
Life is just getting more and more complicated, ain’t it?
April 13, 2015 at 11:25 am
Yeesh. Yeah it is.
April 13, 2015 at 10:28 am
You, Peggles, Darla all posted on the same morning. I think THAT’S a sign.
I’m hoping you were staying in a hotel for a really cool reason, and not because YOUR house was on fire (again).
April 13, 2015 at 11:24 am
Well, I thought so, because it was doing a seminar on 21st century literacy in LA, but then the hotel was ALSO having a convention for rock musicians… and I felt about 800% less cool at that point. “Oh sure, that’s a pretty ‘hep’ amplifier, but you know what else really ‘rocks’? Analyzing the the rhetorical construction of fast food ads! Heh! Right? Guys?”
April 13, 2015 at 11:20 am
only in america!
April 13, 2015 at 6:00 pm
Which is weird – you’d think lawyers in other countries would see the opportunity.
April 15, 2015 at 1:29 pm
exactly! i don’t know why they don’t jump on it. lawyers here in america won’t even take your case from out of state?
April 13, 2015 at 11:35 am
I like the signs with no words, just pictures of what you should or shouldn’t do. Why trust literacy?
April 13, 2015 at 6:01 pm
Exactly. Especially signs that warn you about getting electrocuted or falling off a cliff that just have a poor little stick man really getting blown to bits.
April 14, 2015 at 8:24 am
Yeah. That would be hard to write down effectively in words…
April 15, 2015 at 2:28 am
I had once been quite resentful at the sexism I felt was indicated by the always-male figures portrayed in all those warning signs, until I realized that the signs were wisely targeting the more Darwin-award-prone gender.
April 13, 2015 at 2:26 pm
This noise you speak of: it’s loud, obnoxious and insistent? It might have been a fire alarm, but there’s a chance it was a cell phone ring tone. As for the flashing light, it’s noteworthy that strobes may cause seizure activity in some people. I wonder if there’s a separate alarm to pull when someone has a seizure.
April 13, 2015 at 6:02 pm
The seizure alarm releases a vomit-inducing gas. And the noxious gas alarm spews fire. It’s the circle of life.
April 13, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Indeed, the law has made it so that we must all be dealt with as if we are still in 3rd Grade. To be honest, this would be overkill even for a 3rd Grader…my apologies to them.
April 13, 2015 at 6:03 pm
Maybe a panicky 3rd grader. Who’s still learning the language.
April 13, 2015 at 8:35 pm
Personally, I blame car alarms. Does anyone even pay attention when one of them goes off? Or are they just part of the “urban soundscape” that we all tune out? Maybe if the fire alarms actually set us on fire when there’s a fire somewhere else in the building, we might pay more attention. Incineration by proxy, so to speak…
April 14, 2015 at 1:34 pm
And what’s weird is that no one has *ever* paid attention to car alarms. Maybe the first one. After that? “Hurry up and steal the damn thing!”
April 14, 2015 at 2:00 pm
And… he’s back.
April 15, 2015 at 2:41 am
Signs like those confuse me anew at each re-read: “Fire, Police, Medical Lift Handset”.
Is it saying that the alarm doubles as a phone or walkie-talkie of some sort, to be used by the slightly-singed guest to contact emergency personnel?
Or, is it intended to be read by those personnel, instructing them to lift a handset of some sort? Possibly not a phone, but CPR paddles? Is that device located inside the elevator, and this serves as a helpful reminder of that?
I don’t mind signs, as long as their messages are unsmokily-unambiguous to those of us with hazy thoughts and cloudy thinking.
April 17, 2015 at 4:05 pm
Very funny, and unfortunately, it’s probably happened more than once.