Ever wonder why a particular sign is up? Does anyone else wonder, "What happened to force the creation of this sign?" Well these Redditors have the answer! People from Reddit shared their tales of why a sign HAD to be put up, whether it was for safety or just pure common sense reasons. These hilarious stories might help people think twice about listening to a sign. Content has been edited for clarity.
It’s Not Literal
“Through my cousin who managed a restaurant for years:
On the hostess stand at the front, they had a sign that said: ‘We smoke our meats with premium applewood!’ A small bowl of the wood chips they used placed right in front of it.
The amount of people who would take a wood chip and try to eat it were staggering. It got to the point they had to keep a bag of the wood chips in the cabinet of the hostess stand!
People would sometimes put them in their mouth and spit it out embarrassed, and try to cover it up; some would laugh and say, ‘I shouldn’t have had that last drink.’ Others would turn around, double down, and try to give the saliva covered chip to the hostess then complain that ‘these mints are disgusting!’
So there is now another sign beside the bowl that says ‘WOOD CHIPS DO NOT EAT’ in red letters. Makes for fun conversation every night for the hostesses seating people who are new to the restaurant.
Unfortunately they still need to keep an extra bag of wood chips at the stand and people still think they look like a great after dinner snack. Now when the double downers complain, the hostess just points to the sign and laughs. People never cease to amaze.”
Gross Warning
“One day I noticed that they had drained, cleaned, and refilled the pool at my apartment complex.
A few days later, I noticed a new sign on the pool area gate that said ‘Persons with active diarrhea or who have had diarrhea in the past 48 hours are not permitted to enter the pool.'”
“What The Heck Alex?”
“My husband and I moved in to our first home. It was a completely renovated amazingly cool house, we knew the previous owner flipped it and it was a bona fide bachelor pad – leather bar, pin ball machine, blue under lighting in the kitchens/bathroom, hot tub, the whole nine yards. A few weeks after moving in, we noticed people kept stopping by the house asking for ‘Alex.’ We told them he didn’t live here anymore and they would always ask if we had his new address. They were nice enough but it was starting to get annoying.
One Tuesday evening around 11, we were falling asleep on the couch and all of a sudden some guy strung out appeared in our living room. He opened the sliding door right next to us and walked in asking for Alex. My husband stood up and was like, ‘What the heck, Alex doesn’t live here anymore, tell all your friends,’ and the guy left.
We learned the next day from our neighbors that Alex was the local king pin in the area and frequently had his unsavory clientele over to pick up product here at all hours of the day/night. That weekend we put up a sign that said ‘ALEX DOESN’T LIVE HERE.’ Then we went out and got a massive Rottweiler. We named him Alex”
Beware Of Geese?
“We’ve got a huge sign in our campus that says ‘Beware of geese.’ I’ve never seen a goose in the area before, but I’ve also never seen any people set a foot there.
When I asked my art professors what it is about, she said they put it there, because kids used to skip classes and drink/smoke there… I guess it worked.”
Loophole
“So my family goes camping for two weeks every year. One year when I was young, there was a sign that said ‘All dogs must have leashes,’ and it had an image of a dog on a leash, with no one holding the leash (keep this in mind).
We’re setting up camp and the forest ranger stops by and our dogs are walking around freely, not causing any issues just sniffing around as dogs do. The ranger goes up to my mom and says, ‘Your dogs need to be on leashes.’
My mom points out, ‘They are wearing leashes.’ She calls them over and the leashes are hooked on but no one is holding them. The ranger is dumbfounded and says, ‘I think you’re supposed to be holding it.’ She plays dumb and says, ‘Oh well the sign didn’t say or show that.’ My mother is a college educated woman, she isn’t dumb by any means, she knew what she was doing, and did it anyways because it was funny. The ranger leaves, and we don’t hear anything else.
Fast forward to the next year. The sign was updated and had someone holding the leash of the dog this time.”
Pay Attention
“From my father: He was eating at a seafood restaurant and had to pee. There was a sign on the door to the bathroom that said something like, ‘If you ate this dish then wash your hands before using the bathroom.’ My father, being male and my father, laughed it off and stepped inside to use the urinal, even though he had eaten that dish. There was a moment when he was peeing and fine and then there became the moment when he felt like his private area was on fire. So he ran to the sinks and stared splashing water on his junk. Which also splashed his face, so he (in a very Home Alone style) grabbed his face in an OMG fashion which then started to burn his eyes. So he was there for a very long time splashing water up and down trying to control the burn. Eventually he returned to the table, paid, and left. Obviously there was a reason why the sign existed, and he was just an extension of it.”
“Has A Negative Impact On Their Family”
“Three times over the winter, I took my kid to the zoo and there was a volunteer standing at a certain spot of the gorilla enclosure, showing one of the gorillas videos on her phone. He was very interested in videos of other gorillas and it was mental stimulation for him, she would tell us. The gorilla would sit very close to the glass to see her phone. She was dressed just like a volunteer and talked like one too.
Turns out she wasn’t a volunteer.
Turns out watching YouTube is bad for gorillas.
There is now a sign saying ‘don’t show videos to the gorillas, it has a negative impact on their relationship with their family.'”
Should Have Seen That One Coming
“There’s a sign at Nara Deer Park which says ‘please be careful deer doesn’t eat your ticket, as they cannot be reissued or reimbursed.’ The ticket is for the travel and access to the park. My partner had just read the sign a few minutes earlier when a deer came along and ate her ticket out of her hand…”
Classic Dad Joke
“My dad says that he was trying to pay for parking one time, and he only had a hundred dollar bill. He goes up to the window and slides the guy his bill, and the attendant slides it back angrily and taps on the glass where the ‘no bills larger than $20’ sign. He decided to slide it back and while the parking attendant was a little shocked my dad said ‘I think you’ll find if you hold it up to a twenty they’re the same size.’ The guy begrudgingly handed him his change. He was back at the same parking garage, and they changed the sign to ‘no denominations larger than $20.'”
Did It Actually Say That?
“I live near Copenhagen and there is a park that’s well-known for couples meeting up for a quick bang at nighttime – usually under a bridge that’s commonly used as a meeting spot. This has been a thing for many, many, many years and if you walk through the park, you’ll find protection wrappers here and there. A few years ago, some very unusual signs were put up around the park.
They said: ‘Relations are allowed in the park, but take it into consideration that this park is commonly used by local childcare facilities, so clean up after yourself and please don’t be loud in the timespan 9 am to 4 pm. Thank you.’ Here in Denmark, it’s legal to have relations in public as long as you don’t offend anyone, and they report it so those signs seemed pretty reasonable but it turned out that they were a part of an art project and not put up by the local authorities. Still, funny though.”
Oh That Makes Sense
“Seaside Park in Bridgeport, Connecticut has a great beach, ball fields, a skate park, and for some reason a pen with horses in it. On the fence of the horse pen is a sign that reads, ‘Horses lay down. Please don’t call 911.’
I don’t know the history of the sign, but one would assume that they were receiving a not-insignificant number of 911 calls reporting sick or deceased horses prior to putting the sign up.”
“No Jousting”
“So my local shopping center had those ‘no skating’ signs.
Now they have a ‘no jousting’ sign.
My buddies and I were coming home from a party one evening and treated ourselves to a wonderful dinner of Panera Bread. We picked up a ton of baguettes because why wouldn’t we.
Anyway, heading back to eat and two of my friends decide to start sword fighting with baguettes in the parking lot. This leads to us shopping cart jousting with baguettes. Naturally. Best of 3, if your cart tips over or if you get plunked in the head by the other person’s baguette, you lose. We had bicycle helmets and baseball helmets in my friend’s trunk. We’re good. Practice safe jousting.
Quick important note: all four of us are over the age of 23 years old, one of us being 28 with a wonderful job and a wife and child. He was one of the jousters. He won. It was impressive.
Anyway, on the very final round, the cart tipped as the little evening security cart was wheeling around. This 70 something year old man gets out and just says, ‘Guys, what the heck are you doing?’
Us: ‘Jousting.’
Him: ‘You can’t be doing that here.’
My friend says, ‘I don’t see a sign.’
The guy wishes us a nice night and we leave. Like two weeks later we all go back and the sign was up.”
All Because Of A Cheese Roll
“We went to see a bird show. My mum wanted us to get there a bit early so we could get good seats so while we waited we ate our lunch. My little brother who was about 2 at the time didn’t want his cheese roll, so he threw it into bush. The show was going well, all the birds were doing their tricks when they brought out the star of the show: the wedge tail eagle. They asked him to come to them, but he wouldn’t. He was distracted by something better than dead rat, a cheese roll! No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get the eagle away from the roll and the show had to be cut short. We went back a year later and noticed that there is now a sign that says you can not eat in the bird show area. We took a photo of my now teenage brother with the sign.”
Smart Kid
“His first day of kindergarten, my brother thought he could escape during recess by trying to climb this massive chain-link fence. He got up about 8 feet before the lunch ladies noticed and disciplined him. The aids sent him to the principle’s office and when questioned why he did it, my little smart 5 year old brother replied that ‘there was no sign that said you can’t climb it.’ There is now a sign.”
Children At Play
“My favorite mostly because it happened to me but not because it was a great experience.
When I was about 6, we lived across the street from a park and my sister and I would go play over there all the time (of course). On this particular summer day, we had our best friends over, who also happened to be sisters. My best friend and I decide to go back across the street to get a Popsicle, and my mother is across the street to supervise the crossing.
This was a useless effort, because I had stepped between the cars parked on my side of the street to check if the coast was clear (I was too short to see over them) and I got hit by a car…
I was in the hospital for a month because my skull was cracked (for the second time in my life).
Anyway, after that, they put up a sign that said ‘Slow Children at Play.’ We moved shortly after all this but it’s still there and whenever I pass it I am reminded that it’s there because of ME.”
Warning! Hazardous!
“So for some reason in my neighborhood, people systematically seem to target our mailbox when they’re out walking their dogs, their dogs need to pee.
This has built into an issue, as it has rotted the wood out, and we’ve already replaced the post once because of this.
So put up a big flamboyant sign that reads: WARNING – CHEMICALLY TREATED – HAZARDOUS TO ANIMALS.
It’s done its job, and of course there’s no actual hazard. It’s not just the mailbox that suffers. My brothers and I planted several flowers and small bushes for my mother that had meaning to her. These have all unfortunately died due to the neighbors, despite our attempts to keep them alive.”
That’s A Funny One
“I was walking down the street while traveling and spotted a sign that read, ‘Steal this sign.’ So, we naturally acquired it and gave it a new home in our yard… Where a friend stole it and put it in their yard… Where another friend stole it… And another. And another. Where eventually, after traveling across state lines and around town more than once, it was stolen by someone never to be seen again.”
No Techno!
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“My hometown is kind of hick town. While my girlfriend and I were there for Christmas one year, we went out to a local bar, and they had a digital jukebox there. So what did I do? Put a ton of money into it and start playing the weirdest songs that I can think of. Like hardcore gangsta rap, weird electronic music, modern jazz, etc. The idea being how long would they allow this to go before they shut it off. They made it through most of the songs, until it hit ‘Golden Arrow’ by Darkside which has about a 5-minute ambient intro, and they finally turned it off.
Well we come back the next year and there’s a sign that says ‘No explicit rap or techno.’ So pretty sure that’s because of me.”
Hope That Does Not Happen Again
“Well, we have an old air powered nail tool that we used to build wooden fencing at my grandparents place. There’s a piece of bright white masking tape on the top that reads ‘do not shoot like a weapon!’ And here’s the story.
So my brother found the nail tool when we were younger and thought it would be cool to hold back the safety and shoot it like a weapon. Well as he’s holding the safety back with two fingers, he decides to try to double tap at the block of wood he was shooting at. Well first nail whacked the wood and the second got shot through his hand. Luckily the nail missed most of the bones and tendons, but he still had a three-inch piece of lead sticking through his hand…
And that’s why we have that sign.”
“I Did Not Know That Was Not Allowed”
“They had to put up a large sign at a local nursing home saying basically don’t let people out the door to the outside without checking with staff. Evidently a resident, in a gown and wheelchair, asked a visitor to hold the door (with an alarm and a keypad/code to open) open for them, and the person did. The staff ran out and got the patient at the end of the driveway about to push out into traffic. The visitor actually said, ‘I didn’t know she wasn’t allowed out.'”
NO Weaves!
“One of the conditions of my lease is to not put weave (fake hair) down the drain of the kitchen sink. I asked why on earth that would be in there and she looked at me and said that it’s happened before. It gets caught in the food disposal and then it has to be removed by a plumber.”
Well He Asked
“It’s not exactly a sign, but a rule had to be made because of me which I’m low key proud of. During high school, I had been applying for a job and during the interview my boss asked me ‘how would you spend 1 million dollars if you only had 24 hours to spend it, or you lose it all.’ I was obnoxious in high school, so I bounced back with, ‘I’d buy a million dollars worth of gift cards to all the places I like.’ He stared at me, obviously annoyed by my response, then moved onto the next question without discussing the previous question any further. A few days later I get a call back. I got hired for the job! A few months into the season I’m eating lunch with my boss during break, and he told me that him and the other managers started announcing to potential employees that they can’t use the gift card answer when they ask that question because of me.”
Floor Rules
“When I was in high school, I went to stay with my sister for little sibs weekend at her college and while on my way to the bathroom, I saw a bulletin board with a piece of paper on it that said ‘Floor Rules.’
Number 3: ABSOLUTELY NO HANKY PANKY IN THE SHOWER.
I asked my sister about it, and she said some of her friends went to the bathroom late at night once, they were under the influence so my sister didn’t really know why, and overheard a couple having a freaky time in the communal showers. So while one girl just went to another floor’s bathroom, a dude who overheard the couple decided to pee in a bottle in his room and throw it out his window into the dumpster below. I never laughed so hard in my life that night, and we continued on with the weekend.
About a month later, I was on her floor again helping her bring in groceries when I see the Floor Rules paper had been added to:
Number 4: Do not throw things from your windows
Number 5: No double showering (having more than one person per shower).”
“My Dad Is The Reason”
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“On holiday in Tenerife, my dad took me to a park thing where you could feed these little spider monkeys. Well this monkey was chilling on my dad’s shoulder and suddenly I hear my dad yell and the monkey just goes flying up to the top of a tree.
Well it turned out my dad had a mole on his neck, like quite a big raised one, and this monkey had bitten it clean off. Sat in the top of its tree just chewing it like gum.
Went back the next year, and they had a badly hand drawn sign of a man with a big mole on his neck saying ‘Danger’ or something like that they remembered my dad from the year before and made him take photos with the sign and everything… my dad’s mole is the reason they had to put up that sign!”