I can never understand why Silly Signs still exist in this computer age when auto correction is available. I don’t understand why people with English as a second or third language don’t prepare their notices using Word and then get them proofed before sending to the printer.

I remember seeing a sign that read “Sorry for the inconvience” and it was posted by the Planning Department. Not very good planning, was it? It’s not so much the error as it is the number of people who inspected it and still let it go. I have seen “inconvenience” misspelled so many times over the years.

Don’t Fool With Seniors.

I do most of our shopping at the local Loblaw’s in Bayview Village. I’ve been shopping there for over 20 years.

Over the years there have been a few pricing issues. Things like the shelf price not agreeing with the cash register price. These issues get sorted out, usually in my favour and life goes on.

Recently I came across a really silly error. Roasted Almonds were on special, 2 for $4 or 1 for $1.99. I saw the error immediately and reported it to a nearby employee. It took several minutes before the employee understood. Not a big deal but it sets the scene for my recent discovery.

I wanted a Mars bar and so I visited the candy section of the store. There were no individual Mars bars but there was a bag of bars with the advertised price of $3.50. There were some words in a smaller type size below. I read the “fine print”. It read “less than 1 $3.99”. I figured it was a misprint and I took my groceries and went to the self checkout.

Sure enough it scanned as $3.99. I called the assistant over and explained my problem. She went and verified what I was saying. She agreed with me that the label was misleading and said that she could give it to me for $3.50 but not for free. I became curious. “Why would you give it to me for free”? I asked. “Well the store policy is that, if the shelf price disagrees with the register price the customer gets it for free”. “Well isn’t that what’s happened”? I asked. The assistant agreed and I got the bag of Mars for free.

I went back to the same store a few days later, expecting to see that the error had been fixed and this is what I saw. So I grabbed another bag and went through the same process. Got the same result. Well now I’m on a roll.

Went back a few days later and guess what? The store still hadn’t corrected their mistake. So I went through the same routine and now I’m 3 & 0. Here’s the strange part. When I got home with all the groceries my wife put the stuff away and she checked the bill. Somehow, I had paid for 2 boxes of dates but I only had 1 box. The price that I paid for the extra dates was $10. Almost the same as the value of the candy I got for free. The other crazy part is that I went through self-checkout.

There’s a Seinfeld episode called The Opposite where Jerry loses a stand-up gig and five minutes later is asked to perform another one on the same night, for the same pay, prompting Kramer to call him “Even Steven”. This causes Jerry to start noticing how everything always ends up turning out exactly the same for him as originally planned, never losing or gaining.

Here’s another example of a sign that initially makes no sense. I looked at this sign for several minutes before I understood. Because Emergency is in red, I read it as; if there is an Emergency! Phone (the) LifeGuards Office. But there was no number to call. Finally I read it as; “If there is an emergency, the phone is in the Lifeguards’ office.” Imagine if there had been a real emergency. The time wasted comprehending the message might have been critical.

People who type in the information that we read during the news have a tough job. The person typing during this newscast must have been Jewish.