Sign, Sign, Everywhere A...Well, Actually, Not EVERYWHERE

Photo By Kip Browne

So a few days ago I was driving somewhere with Connie Nompelis (No-bell-iss) and she pointed out a "DO NOT LITTER" sign. The sign was not on a utility pole, like the one pictured above, but on somebody's property.

"I love those signs--!" Connie gushed.

And I responded something like, well, I doubt...

...if the signs have much impact. I hardly think some no-account litterbug corner-hanger-out-all-the-timer walks down the street--the freaking MIDDLE OF THE STREET--and sees one of those "DO NOT LITTER" signs and he's all, like, "Oh, gee, I WAS going to throw my empty Cheeto bag on the ground, all casual-like, but now that I see the 'DO NOT LITTER' sign I will instead attain some minimum standard of social responsibility, shove it in my back pocket and take it all the way home."

(No, I wasn't actually THAT articulate in Connie's car. Whatever I said in Connie's car was sort of like the "first draft" of what I'm writing here, but I can do Connie's response the same favor)

Connie responded the point of the sign was it broadcasts a MESSAGE. The message is "somebody lives here who gives a damn, who is trying every day to make things better." It would be for the best, she thought, if house after house were to start sprouting signs like that, constant visual evidence that NoMi neighbors stand shoulder-to-shoulder, turning this place from something rough to something BUFFED.

Connie can convince me the moon is made of green cheese, if she likes, and send me scurrying for my crackers. I found myself agreeing about the sign and thinking, hey, where can I get one of those "DO NOT LITTER" signs?

Of course, first I'd like to have a sign that says "NO PHONEBOOKS" to put on a front door, right above the front step, until one blessed day foretold in prophesy somebody will look at the sign and say, "How quaint!" and a little child will ask, "Mommy, what's a PHONE BOOK?"