Upside Down & Backwards: Lord, won't you send me a sign?

The chaos of our lives is diffuse with symbols directing us toward specific paths of thinking. These very snaky, wormlike squiggles splattered across the page help make-up words, which are themselves symbols. And then the words, which signify something separate from themselves (or not) can take on a plethora of other meanings and the whole thing gets very complicated and convoluted. In the simplest sense, signs concisely tell us what to do and oftentimes what not to do. No Parking. 50% Off. Poison Do Not Eat. Stay On Track. Ladies. Gentlemen. Continue Reading.

So I didn't quite know how to segue in to describing just how many more signs tourists have to pay attention to than non-tourists, since everyone's daily life is chock-full of pictograms and hieroglyphs and various other forms of communication to decipher. I guess, we are all in the same boat, just some of us are in a boat with signs that tell us we are on the symbol boat and that there will be snacks.

There have been funny signs- “no boozin' in the kitchen”. There have been sad signs- “stolen Camera- please give back the memory card to room 433, no questions asked” and some of been downright disgusting “ladies, please do not leave used sanitary products on the floor”

It can be exhausting to plod your way through endless series of commands given to you on white, shiny aluminium tablets bolted to poles; it's irksome to collect stacks of “Hostel Regulations” and “Wwoofer Rules” pamphlets. It's that same phenomenon of saying something over and over again until that something is strange and alien, repetition to the point of meaninglessness.

But alas, once in a while an unexpected reprieve comes along and makes you eager to read the next sign.

The other sign in the display said, that if we paid the zoo, we could feed the giraffe, I guess, it may still die that way too? But zoo keeper didn't endorse that sign, only the “Close Encounters” did so I am unclear about it.