As you walk through one major airport in the Northeast, you will encounter a sign in the form of a yellow rhombus, on which is painted a bomb. Not a modern bomb; rather, it is an old fashioned kind of bomb: round, with a protruding sputtering fuse. A hundred years ago, anarchists, dressed in top hats and capes, sporting scruffy beards and shouting “Death to the Oppressors,” used to heave them at fashionable ladies. Sort of like today, except for the changes in headgear and slogans. Of course, the bomb is surrounded by a circle which is crossed by a slash,  like a “No Smoking” or “No Eating” or “No Spitting on the Grass” (just kidding, but I’d love to see the ideograph for THAT one) indicating, I suppose, that you should leave your bomb at home. It is typical of the ossified bureacracy of a collapsing civilization to think that this sign will provide us poor flyers with an added level of safety.

But there are some signs that are useful. For example, when you walk into a bar in Boston, you will be greeted with a yellow rectangular sign, printed in black block letters, that begins “WARNING.” This is a word that never gives me a good feeling. In the same typeface, the sign continues with a citation to the Massachusetts code that provides for your hanging, drawing, and quartering if you are apprehended drinking an adult beverage and are not yet of the legal age to become a disgustingly sloppy drunk. Well, the punishment is not quite that severe, but you get my drift.

The reason that this sign is so much fun is that, when you enter a bar in Austin, Texas, you will encounter a superficially similar sign. Once again, it is rectangular, yellow, printed in block letters, and starts with that same ominous “WARNING.” However, as you read the following text, you are disabused of the notion that Austin is like Boston, looking out for the morals of its youth. No no no! The text of the Austin sign informs you of the dire penalty if you bring your GUN into the bar. I never read far enough to get to the description of the penalty, but I suspect it involves your being shot. And if you disregard the sign, get into a dispute, and plug somebody, I also suspect that you will be acquitted when you say “Judge, he needed killin’.”

When you enter a restaurant in California, you are greeted by a sign, white this time, which informs you that everything served in this restaurant has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. Bon appetit! The sign does not mention, of course, that the laboratory animal was a rat forced to eat a daily dose of twelve pounds of whatever chemical is the worry of the month before developing cancer, which occurred about ten milliseconds before its stomach exploded from the volume of stuff squirted into it.

It keeps getting better. McDonald’s, of “Super Size Me” fame, is now putting calorie counts on its placemats, and other purveyors of similar health foods are following suit.

In the not too distant future, we can expect the introduction of signs which are even more fun.

At the entrance to a hat shop: “The last guy to try on that hat probably had head lice.”

At the entrance to a power tool shop: “You don’t really need those fingers, do you?”

At the entrance to the doctor’s office: “Medical Malpractice Lawyer One Floor Up.”

and my personal favorite:

At the entrance to a by-the-hour motel: “If you sleep with her, it will fall off.”

Full disclosure is a beautiful thing.