It’s a Sign

For anyone who has not been to Canada, it is a beautiful country home to many creative, friendly, and unique people. We thank the bus driver before we get off the bus at our stop; we always hold the door for people, sometimes even to the extent where we’re holding it open until everyone has left; we are polite drivers who actually let other people merge into our lane without speeding up to make it difficult for them. These are just some of the wonderful qualities of Canadians, but Canada itself can be an odd place.

In particular, Canadian signs are quite strange. After visiting the US and England, I have come to realize that some of the signs we have just don’t exist or aren’t used in other countries, whether because the kind of cautions are rare, or because other countries invented their owns sign symbols, I don’t know. What I do know is that Canadian signs can be strange, and not always because of what they are.

In some cases, Canadian signs are “defaced.” I say this in quotation marks because I believe it can sometimes actually enhance the sign. In driving school, Canadians are taught to look at every sign, but really, almost no one does that. So, why not make the sign more appealing to look at???

This is a sign up at the university that I took a few weeks back. Yup, that is a Red Bull can glued to the sign, with the crossing pedestrian having sharpie-drawn wings. The university saw this as defacing public property; I saw this as an expression of creativity.

Turns out WordPress has a weekly Photo Challenge, and this week’s theme was signs. I’m not one for challenges, but this one seemed particularly apropos given I took this picture earlier in the week. And come on, I challenge you to find another crosswalk sign defaced with Red Bull. Hehe, see what I did there???