This is why I love having a camera

Tommy hated taking me to the movies.

Well, that's not exactly true -- he seemed to love taking me to see shitty movies, because of the delight he'd get from watching me squirm during their running time and growl afterwards. But there was a part of it that bugged him whenever I'd go off on some crappy movie we'd sat through.

"You always go looking for things to complain about," he'd say. He'd accuse of me of going out of my way to find plot holes and such, reasons to denounce the movie as bad.

Not true. I just notice those things.

At Job Number One, Airfon will often hand me a new piece of paper that's come into the building and say, "What's wrong with it?" Inevitably, I'll find something.

Again, I don't typically look for these things. I just see them. And it bugs me.

Moreover, I don't see how someone can not see them. Take this sign I saw this morning, for instance:



Obviously, a spelling error. A simple transposition. But it bugs me. How can no one notice? Or notice, but not tell those responsible to fix it? Or do those responsible know, and not care? (This is to say nothing of the fact that that should probably say chopped beef on the second line; I'm willing to excuse things like that on a marquee, when you have limited space.)

But then there are signs like the one I'm about to show you.

Now, I didn't go looking for anything wrong when I passed by this sign the first time. But I noticed something just the same. And then I noticed something else wrong with it. And then....

This sign, for those of you familiar with the geography of Dickinson, is located at the corner of Deats and Nichols, just past the railroad tracks. Delivering pizza, I pass this sign several times a day. So I get a chance to look at it a lot.



Seems perfectly innocuous, doesn't it? But this sign was made by crazy people.

About the only thing right on this sign is the name of the company and its contact information. That, and the arrow -- if you follow the arrow, you will find the Berry Field subdivision.

However:

1. You forgot the $ before 0 DOWN. This is petty, yes. But...
2. Yes, that says $500 MOVIE-IN. I don't know what a movie-in is. (I guess they meant move-in. But still, I don't know.)
   
3. "HWY 517 WEST" -- FM 517 is not a highway. It's a farm market road, hence FM 517. The difference is irrelevant perhaps, but it's still wrong.
4. Furthermore, FM 517 West is on the other side of town. Several miles away from Berry Field. Berry Field is on Nichols, which is off of FM 517 East. I know this, because I live on FM 517 East. Also, I'm not an idiot and I can read.
5. Lest you think that "west" is indicative of where you should go from 517 to get to Berry Field, I can stop that right here -- Berry Field is north of 517.
6. And furthermore, to turn left on Nichols from 517 and get to Berry Field, you'd have to be going east, not west.
   
7. So. It tells you to turn "LEFT ON NICHOLS." Except the sign is on Nichols, not on 517, and it faces Deats. If you turn left on Nichols from where the sign is, you'll go the wrong direction. In order to turn left on Nichols and get to Berry Field, the sign would have be about half a mile away. Do that, though, and the arrow would be pointing the wrong direction.

Somebody designed this piece of advertising. Someone else made it. It was shipped. It was put in its place. And no one noticed, "Hey, everything on this sign is wrong!"

And these people want to build you a house.

No, thank you.