Who doesn’t love a good terrible sign?

By terrible, of course, I mean a sign that attempts to communicate a certain message but in practice communicates an entirely different or even antithetical message. The internet is full of them, and I’ll leave it to your own ingenuity to find the ones that tickle your fancy, but there’s nothing quite like coming across one in the wild.

And that’s what I did this week!

We took the sprouts on an overnight trip to Chattanooga for a visit to the aquarium and the discovery museum (weather was predicted to be too nasty for outdoor activities and … it wasn’t, but we had already arranged for indoor stuff so that’s life I guess). It was a great time! Not that I’m suddenly turning travel agent or anything, but I can safely say (and I take no pleasure in this) that these facilities have way more to offer the tourist than the comparable facilities in Atlanta.

More to the point, I also came across some delightfully confusing signage.

Exhibit A:

I’ve seen this one before, and maybe even commented on it here. (Which is testament both to how long I’ve had this site and how old I’m getting — there’s a vague sense that this thing may have happened, but the memory is so dim and far away it might as well be somebody else’s.) Anyway — this is a sign posted outside a bathroom advertising that there’s a changing table inside, but for all my efforts I can’t see it as anything other than a dude putting a baby on a grill.

“Keep the baby over the center of the coals,” it seems to say. “Check the heat of the grill often and turn the baby to ensure even cooking.”

Then, this:

This one, I … oi. It’s two days later and I’m still breaking my brain trying to properly understand it. First of all, it’s guilty of that perverse advertising oddity where the animal about to be eaten is serenely happy about the entire arrangement. Much like the cow at Milliways in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, our finny little friend here just can’t wait to be filleted. Then there’s the motto, which — I mean, isn’t that a law enforcement slogan? That being said, it’s a lovely double entendre. “We’re going to serve you some fish, but we’re also going to protect them.”

You know. So you can eat them. Happy fish!

A representative from the aquarium actually tweeted me back when I expressed this sentiment, which surprised and impressed me:

So I guess my attempt at twitter humor came up a bit short. On the subject, I won’t at all get into where my head went when I saw that the handle of the Tennessee Aquarium is @TNAquarium. Nope, won’t go there at all, and if your mind didn’t go there with me, then it’s a testament to your character.

Last but not least, there was also this exhibit plaque:

I don’t know what Julie did, but clearly the Aquarium is not having any of it.