Yesterday marked my triumphant return to the city of Sunnyvale. It had been about six months since I had shown my face around town and although my visit there was brief, it was not necessarily without incident.
We were killing time before a 4:20 PM (he he) showing of The Soloist and we decided to stop by the world famous Daily Donut for an afternoon snack. Being a little less ambulatory than my partners in crime, I stayed back to guard the CRV while my entourage entered the store to stock up on supplies.
As I sat in the car waiting for them to return, I took advantage of the ample time afforded me to soak in the once familiar, now half forgotten sights and sounds of The ‘Vale circa the intersection of Fair Oaks and Caliente. There was mariachi music blaring from the car next to me as an endless stream of folks filed in and out of the 7-11 to my immediate left.
Once the Ford LTD, adorned with a wooden squirrel hood ornament, parked in front of the convenience store failed to command my full attention, I shifted my gaze to the plate glass window storefront of the donut shop. Of the multitude of signage that decorated the floor to ceiling entranceway of the store, one message in particular captured my fancy.
It read: “Fresh Donuts or find I’M HOT in the morning!”
Umm, what?
Try as we might, the assembled members of Team ALS Boy could not crack the code and decipher the mystery of the sign. So I ask you, oh loyal reader, what does it all mean?
The Adventures of ALS Boy 
…it’s the “or find” that gets me. I worked at a company in the 80’s that had the ubiquitous catering truck that came in the morning (for snack) and at noonish (for lunchish). The receptionist, a fine woman of questionable hair (it was the 80’s) would announce over the P.A., “May I have your attention, please. The catering truck is here. Repeat. The catering truck is here.” (she said the word, “repeat”. I know, and you know, it was on the sheet she read from, and she (probably) didn’t know any better than to read the word, “repeat” every day. I always found it a little sad, yet comforting at the same time. “Or find” probably falls into the same category.
I think they were trying to say “…find ’em HOT in the morning.” But that renders the “or” inexplicable, as well…
It’s always gravely disturbing to me when I see signage with improper spelling/punctuation/grammar. If something is important enough to put on a sign, then at least commit to giving it the proper respect of proofreading before putting it out to the world! (Can you tell I’m passionate about this? I once found a misspelling on a sign at Disneyland. The cast member I told was mortified. And rightly so.)
I was recently reading an article about this very topic, and my favorite example was a sign put up by a shopkeeper who had to close temporarily for an emergency during normal business hours. The sign read, “Sorry for the incontinence.” (Apparently, he had more than one emergency.) These are the things that spell-check can’t help you with. If only they had idiot-check.
I had many days in China asking myself similar questions. I had a student come to school one day with a shirt that said simply ‘Sport Pokey Junior’. I was perplexed for days.
Hey Tra, you must have missed the picture in the paper the other day of the high school that had it’s name (X High School) and the words ‘commited to excellence’ underneath. The sad part is they probably spent like S30K for the sign…