signs

Everyone enjoys a good laugh from time to time. I enjoy spending time with people with a sense of humor. When I can’t get a good laugh with another person, I read the good ol’ comics such as the Peanuts, Heathcliff, or Garfield. (I actually collect the comic books from these three comic strips. I often go to sleep reading them at night.)

At the shop, my boss (who has a great sense of humor) hangs signs on the walls that are humorous. Rather, they were funny for the first week. When you come in to work multiple days a week for several summers in a row, the humor in them fades. It becomes a “nice saying” or something. I never laugh at them on my own anymore. The tourists coming through laugh about them all the time though. For some reason, tourists seem to have the idea that if it is hanging on my wall, I have not read it yet. So these signs are read to me by kind customers ever day.

A couple weeks ago, two people came into the shop. A woman that I would estimate to be around 50 years old brought in her grandmother. The grandmother must have been at least 90 and she was very deaf. After getting into the shop, the lady needed to sit and rest for a few minutes. As she sat there, her granddaughter decided to read all the signs on the walls to her grandmother. It wouldn’t have been a problem if the lady was able to hear more easily, but instead, it made for a most interesting few minutes. The granddaughter was close to shouting out what each sign said. My favorite was one of our less humorous signs which reads “Fudge is best when purchased in LARGE quantities.” (At first, I thought it was a good sign, but after time, it just wasn’t that funny. It hangs on the wall, and I could care less about it.) The granddaughter read it aloud and the said, “Grandma! Did you see that sign?” She then proceeded to read it. Her grandma looked at her and loudly said, “HUH???” The lady read the sign again a couple more times, louder, but still to no avail. By this time, there were quite a few people in the shop browsing around watching the candy making process. (At the time, I was washing a table.) Finally, the lady shamelessly yelled at the top of her lungs, “FUDGE IS BEST WHEN PURCHASED IN LARGE QUANTITIES!!” Everyone in the shop stared at her, a little bit shocked at her yelling. I thought it was pretty funny. The little old lady started giggling like a little schoolgirl because she thought it was funny. Then she responded by asking, “Fudge is best when purchased in what??”

Also fairly recently, we had an adult day-care group come in. They were all people who had a special need of one sort or another. I love to work with these people, but it can be hard because I have to be careful about allowing them to sample candy. I never know if someone is allergic to an ingredient, and I don’t know that I can trust them to know about their own allergies. This particular group had about 15 people and was very rambunctious! I was making candy at the time, so we had a good visit while I worked on that. Their group leader was a most interesting person. At first, I was not sure if she was the leader or not, but after watching her moving the people around, I finally decided that she must be in charge. After I finished making the candy I was slicing the fudge and she was trying to ask me a question but she didn’t seem quite able to get it out. As she would be asking her question, she would stop midsentence to read one of the signs on the wall aloud. Her question proceeded as follows. “Sir? Can you tell me—‘do not attempt this at home’—how do you know when you’re slicing the fudge—‘will trade fudge for cold beer’—if you’re accurate in guessing—‘fudge makes the world go ‘round’—how thick each slice should be?—‘fudge is best when purchased in LARGE quantities.’” After making it all the way through the question—at long last—she turned and started to move her group outside to go somewhere else without waiting for a reply. Was this woman a severe case of ADD? How did she get to be in charge of a group of 15 people that need a constant eye on them and keep track of each of them? I was absolutely perplexed by our meeting.

I suppose those signs do still hold humor in them for me at times. It just takes the right person reading it to make it come alive again for me. I will never forget the time I sold one of the signs to a random customer who thought it was so funny that they wanted to hang it on their wall at home. I sold the sign for 50 cents. (It is plain text printed on white computer paper. There was nothing special about it except the fact that I autographed it for the person. Perhaps it was a special keep-sake?) I can assure you, you will never find one of those signs framed, hanging over the top of my fireplace in my living room.