Thursday, July 20, 2017

no, can do!!!!!

(Original image via Pintrest)
So this week I saw a sign on Facebook that brought me to my knees with mirth. It read "Do not insult a crocodile while your feet are still in the water". Of course, the first thing I did was think up crocodile insults: "Your breath smells of dead deer", "You have a long bum", "What's with the goofy grin?", "Dude, you have T-Rex arms" and "My, what big teeth you have".

After I'd finished laughing at my own lame jokes, I remembered some photos I took while Exotica and I were in Italy. I don't know why, but, they seem to have quite a diverse array of NO and DO signs. Who knows why. Perhaps when people travel to Italy they lean towards risky behaviour? Or, perhaps Italians themselves like to court uncommon activities, and for this reason, need constant reminders of what's allowed and what's not.

Anyway, it's not often I do image driven blog posts (they don't translate well to audio books. Haha.) but I felt these were too funny not to share. (I must add, however, that my only other image driven post, "Hot and Furry generates nearly as many hits as my "Africa Burnt" post. It used to be called "Hot Fuzz" but I had to change the name because I think that visitors to "Hot Fuzz" may have been looking for something else...)

The image below clearly shows a man in a 1920's bathing suit with a big fat red NO line cutting him diagonally in half. From this, we can only deduce that 1920's bathing suits aren't allowed. Never. I have to wonder why. Maybe it just means "No Men In Tight Lycra". Who can tell?


This next image doesn't so much denote a "NO" as it does a "DO". As in "DO POLE DANCING HERE" and "GROIN GRINDING MUST BE AT THIS POINT". It's quite sweet when you look closely. The little black guy seems to be having the time of his life - arm waving out to the side and everything.


I literally stared at the image below for ages and ages before I figured out what it is. We found it on all the trains and clearly, it states that a little fold-down table and X-stand is available, should you have brought your wine bottle along. This is Italy after all. Again, more a "DO" sign than a "NO" sign.



I found the sign below outside the Collus...Colles....Colosseum (Yip, I had to Google how to spell it correctly.) From this sign, we can be certain that men with hats and abnormally large hands are NOT ALLOWED in this area. I don't know what they do with their big, black hands. But they're not allowed. Not ever.


The next sign is neither a NO, or a DO sign, but rather a sign that reads "WE MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR DRAWING ATTENTION AS WE DANCE ON THE TRAIN". The words non appoggiarsi clearly mean "No apology", and attenzione allo spazio most assuredly means "attention in the space", and tra treno e banchina definitely means "to train dance" (banchina derived from the word "Ballet", of course.) Furthermore, I know exactly which dance he's doing: the dance that Cher, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci do at 1min32sec in the "Shoop Shoop" music video. I shit you not. Just check it out.


We found the sign below at all train stations. Obviously, Uscita with an arrow means that "U Shita that way", indicates where pooping is allowed. We never saw a U Peea sign, which was a little disappointing.


We also saw the sign below just about everywhere. It shows a man running full tilt at a door. Without a shadow of a doubt, he is doing the same run that Harry Potter has to do at Platform 9 3/4 in order to board the Hogwarts Express. Exotica and I wanted to try it too, but we could never find a white door to run at.


The last two signs are my favourites because they are imbued with all the affection that we associate with Italians. The first sign implies that if you are a pick-pocket, you are allowed to hold hands with anyone holding a cheer-leading pom-pom. And berets, as you know, are an integral part of the official pick-pocket uniform.


The last sign is totally cute. It reads "Attention all lads". The drawing shows a red arrow, which points to the exact spot you must tickle someone under their arm, but, you must be wearing swimming goggles when you do it. You just must. 


So, dear readers and lookers. If you go to Italy, please take along your wine bottles, berets and swimming goggles but leave your 1920's swimming costume behind. 

1 comment:

  1. And clearly you shouldn't take your OJ Simpson black glove either!! Hehehe

    ReplyDelete