Sometimes a sign does more than just provide information. Consider this warning bolted to the gate to the pool at our hotel, for example. Doesn’t it leave you wondering what must have happened, on some grim day in the past, to cause a hotel to post a permanent notice that people who have “active diarrhea” — in itself an extremely evocative phrase — shouldn’t swim in the pool? The mind reels!
You’d like to think that it’s not necessary for hotels to notify guests that if they are suffering from uncontrollable physical conditions that are inevitably going to soil the water in a communal pool, thy shouldn’t take a dip. After all, chlorine can only do so much. But apparently that’s not the case. It’s just another sign — in this case, a literal one — that the normal code of behavior no longer holds, and the world is going to hell.
Webner House 