- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Vandal Gives Advice With Stop Sign Message
A stop sign in front of Sam's Club at the intersection of Shirley and Lambert Drives in Cape Girardeau advises passer-bys to "STOP CONSUMING."
STOP is the regular size that you would expect on a sign at an intersection, but CONSUMING is much smaller. It's below STOP and appears to have been applied to the sign by someone using white vinyl self-adhesive letters about 2-inches tall.
The vandalized sign has obviously been this way for years. However, it is just a voice in the retailer wilderness that surrounds Siemers Drive and has apparently made no impact. The stores are as busy as always and even more so on the weekends just prior to Christmas.
A reader pointed this sign out to me and I attempted to get a photo of it this past Saturday.
Yes, I said Saturday. I don't know what I was thinking. Apparently I wasn't.
On the last weekend before Christmas, every parking lot was jammed with vehicles, and the roads on the west side of town weren't any better. Had I even attempted to get out of my truck to try to take a photo of the sign, I know I would have been a goner, surely flattened by some mother from Miner flying in her minivan from Wal-Mart to Target in an effort to buy a must-have-toy that she couldn't find in Sikeston.
I decided that I would have a better chance of surviving if I leaped on a live grenade so I turned my truck back to Siemers and planned to get the photo another time, when parking was not quite at capacity. Consider it a strategic retreat.
I do find the vandalism of this sign quite funny. First of all, it is highly atypical for a vandal. Most vandals like to work with cans of spray paint and mark an out of the way wall with their airbrushed-like art. However, this vandal chose to use manufactured adhesive block letters and apply them to a very visible sign located in a high traffic area. That took some guts and a little bit of time.
The letters are straight and the kerning -- that is the space between the letters -- is very consistent. The only flaw is that it is not quite centered beneath STOP. Basically, if I had to give the vandal who created this graffiti a grade, it would be an A minus.
I also find it ironic that the vandal likely purchased these letters. They consumed so they could get the message out to everyone driving by to stop consuming.
I really don't think they gave this message a lot of thought. It was probably a knee-jerk reaction to some Big Liberal Media news report. Did they even consider if their statement actually worked? What if everyone who drove by this sign did stop consuming, cold turkey? Hopefully they would have enough gas in their vehicle to make it home. When you fill up your tank you are consuming.
And hopefully those people who decided to stop consuming would have plenty of canned beans and ready to eat food already in their pantry. They couldn't cook it inside, because their oven or stove or microwave, all consume power, but they might be able to collect enough branches and twigs to start a fire so they could warm up those beans outside. That's also consuming, but you're consuming Mother Nature's bounty without any middlemen being involved so that would probably be OK.
I'm sure the vandal who posted this addition to the stop sign, didn't consider the potential ramifications of his or hers message. The person was probably thinking that people passing by after likely visiting the Wal-Mart next to Sam's Club should STOP EXCESSIVE CONSUMING. They missed a word in their haste to post their message.
Of course, then we could get into a debate over what is or isn't excessive consuming.
Is a 20-pack of Mach-3 Razors from Sam's Club excessive? Not to me, but to others who use a different brand, probably.
Is the 1080p 65-inch LCD TV you're buying to replace the 720p 54-inch LCD model hanging in your family room excessive? Not to you, I'm sure.
Is a Giant Value Pak of 2-inch adhesive letters that includes 10 sets of the entire alphabet plus extra vowels plus numbers and punctuation symbols excessive?
Perhaps, it would be to most people, but maybe not to a vandal.
Thanks to Budman for alerting me to this sign.
Respond to this blog
Posting a comment requires a subscription.