Don’t walk upside down in the middle of the street, y’all.

So, I came across this sign yesterday:

huh

…and I couldn’t decide if it meant “don’t walk upside down” or “don’t stand on your head in this particular intersection” but I suspect it most likely means “Don’t hang signs while drunk”.  All are good advice though so I thought I’d share it here.

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And now…time for the weekly wrap-up!

sid2

 

Shit I made in my shop (Named “EIGHT POUNDS OF UNCUT COCAINE” so that your credit card bill will be more interesting.):

Shit-you-may-or-may-not-want-to-see:

This week’s wrap-up is brought to you by Heather McVea,  author of urban fantasy, paranormal, and adventure-laden romps through any number of worlds. (With a healthy dose of romance, sarcasm and snark added.)  From Heather: “I subscribe to the basic beliefs that a day without vampires is like a day without sunshine, and you never can tell the good witch from the bad witch. In pursuit of those tenets, I have a five book series set in San Antonio, TX (Waking Forever Series), and have just published book two of a four book series set in Baltimore, MD (Elements Series). I also have a standalone book (November’s End), and two novellas (Turn Darkly and Wayward Destiny).”  You should check them all out here.

84 thoughts on “Don’t walk upside down in the middle of the street, y’all.

Read comments below or add one.

  1. I always enjoy your unique view of the world. Apparently so do a lot of people since your books are enjoying their rightful place high on the best seller lists. Have a wonderful day!

  2. Ha! I can’t wait to come back to see how many other interesting interpretations we can come up with.

    But I’m pretty sure these unfunny people are trying to tell us there’s no going down allowed ’round here.

    Screw that

  3. The best sign I ever saw was a piece of paper taped over a hole in a concrete patio at an elementary school. In block letters: DO NOT REMOVE HOLE.

    That was ten years ago.

    I’m still befuddled.

  4. I liked the, ‘It is customary to tip’ sign I saw on a boat once. I held on tight the whole trip because even though it is customary, I was not interested in tipping. The boat captain and crew didn’t think it was as funny as I did.

  5. I love signs that have been “altered” 🙂 We were driving through a town a couple of years ago, and somebody had edited every stop-sign in the town, attaching the words “hammer time” under the word “STOP!” lol

  6. It is good advice, but the sign must work because I assume you don’t see too many people on their heads or walking upside down on your streets.

  7. Maybe it means “No Australians” which seems kind of bigoted for a street corner.

  8. Have you read “the life changing magic of not giving a f*ck”? Might go well with your notebook… 🙂

  9. I want to live in a town that has no walking upside down, because who wants all that hair in ur face? I’m tempted to do a go fund me for a laptop and internet for my nerves. Ya think? I can’t afford it. Love the book too

  10. I assumed it meant, “Sign installer’s day off” but maybe that’s just me. It could be a sign of the apocalypse for all I know. Oh, wait, that already happened. Never mind, got me.

  11. I almost got taken out by a donkey walking down the sidewalk in downtown Austin last week. We need a warning sign for that.

  12. Well damn I guess that intersection is off limits for me, as my preferred way to walk is while on my head….hmm guess I better avoid that one, I would hate to get a J-head walking ticket. Hahah

  13. Oooh ooh i know what the “do not remove hole” sign probably is from! The school has someone coming in to patch&repair the playground cement, and they are making sure that they dont lose the hole for mounting the pole for …. Fill in a favorite pole-related game. For me it was tetherball. I’ve also seen toddler-sized basketball poles. And flagpoles. And I’m sure there are more!

  14. Clearly this is an attempt to stop us from searching for Barb and Eleven in the Upside Down. Eggos forever!

  15. Don’t know why, but that walker looks kind of funky to me upside down; so no funkiness at that point – no playing your funky music at that intersection! (I just realized, it’s a Rorschach street sign.)

    Either that, or an insurance agent was messing with signs trying to increase the number of people needing to make claims and thus sky-rocketing their rates. Sneaky insurance agent!

  16. Susanne I am moving to San Antonio next month but maybe I picked the wrong city? Pls advise. Austin sounds more surreal.

  17. I can’t do a hand stand because my boobs flop down(?)…..up(?)…..and suffocate me. I have a doctor’s note. This intersection is probably the safest place on the planet for me.

  18. Susanne the donkey story killed me. I did once see a turkey crossing sign in a beach town in Northern California. I didn’t know north cali cad such a big turkey population.

  19. Thank you so much, Jenny! I’m finally able to get Furiously Happy! I’m so excited; I was very sad to have missed out the last time it was available for a reduced price. When I visit your site (almost daily), and read in the comments, I have often felt like the only person in the world who hasn’t read any of your books. I finally get to join the “cool kids club”, or at least hide in the shadows of them.

  20. This sign only makes sense to those who are piss-your-pants-drunk!

    Congratulations, Jenny! Furiously Happy – the book everyone needs to read, and the one I need to read again!

  21. “Danger, falling aliens.” Because you know how hard it is to explain to your insurance company that your car was hit by a falling alien.
    And I still want to know if Victor came through with either the giant chicken, or a sasquatch, preferably in hot pink. It is not as if you haven’t given him enough hints, like “accidentally” leaving your amazon tab open to the giant sasquatch deal of the day. I’m supposed to be on my way to the pharmacy to get medication, but had to check your post first. Now I don’t know if I need more or less medication.

  22. I love the bathroom passes link. It reminds me of the old days, 40 years ago, when I was in high school and would go out to have a smoke instead of going to the bathroom….oh those days…lol.

  23. I think it says “no pole dancing,” which is probably a good idea. You could get hurt pole dancing on a public street, or cause an accident.

  24. I heard you on NPR too!!!! I was playing around with my radio presets and I hear “and you discuss mental illness” WHO ELSE COULD THAT BE?!!

  25. I totally went to buy Furiously Happy for $2.99 and then Kindle was like “You have this book already, dumbass.”

    Yeah…

  26. That sign only had one screw in it and somebody screwed with it. Possibly to make a more interesting subject?

  27. That sign is for the people who live in the underverse. Best sign I ever saw was in Key West: “Don’t pick up cats. No coconuts”.

  28. Well, I know someone who pole dances (for fun, not profit) and they do “pole” whenever they can. That pole, however, is a bit thick for pole dancing. So I like the no aliens falling from the sky.

    My mother, an avid traveler, once saw signs in a large outdoor eating area (they had many sinks to wash your hands before eating) that said, “Please do not vomit in the sinks.” I think they went somewhere else for lunch.

  29. I, too, unexpectedly heard you on NPR! An interview from long, long ago. I was hoping the interviewer would follow up on the “Jesus as zombie” comment, but she did not.

  30. So windy! Don’t worry too many, and don’t do it (to worry) at all. Even if speed limit for motor vehicles isn’t low enough.
    Use always protection while working!
    Best Ragards,

  31. Bought “Furiously Happy” yesterday@ Target. Cannot wait to read it! Love to all y’all!

  32. A friend had a teacher in high school who used a toilet seat as a hall pass. Hopefully a new one.

  33. I thought it meant don’t fall off head-first.
    “If you must play on the traffic lights like monkey bars, and if you must fall off, please don’t land on your head.”

    What’s not funny is that that’s really what I thought, as in it took me a bit to realize what it really was.

  34. Go ahead Jenny! Nice work on NPR (how cultured!)

    BTW… the bakery where I worked made albino bunnies for Zombie Jesus Day (white bread rabbits with cranberry eyes for Easter). I thought it was just us.

  35. I’m 32, don’t have kids and am confused… why are the bathroom passes so large and in charge? Do kids lose them or are embarrassed to have them, so they hurry back? I think i was before the time of hall passes or just used the class pet, a Brachiosaurus to ride there. BTW, I love that autocorrect thinks i mean to say Brontosaurus, sorry no autocorrect, that is a different dinosaur.

  36. no bungee jumping. I doubt if there are too many signs that depict this, so the folks who decide such things thought, well… okay…

  37. The sign is really an ad for the long-awaited Human Hamster Wheel! Perhaps it’s a route for that, like a bike route is for biking.

  38. Nothing to do with this post, but did you know there was a giant metal rooster on The Walking Dead Sunday night?? I immediately thought of you! A friend for Beyoncé?

  39. I have been following you for a short while, and I always find something to laugh about…and something to think about…Thanks for sharing you!

  40. LOL all these comments are hillarious! Like I think I will be literally commenting late so that I can read all the other comments. You are genuinely insane Bloggess

  41. I don’t want to be rude or I don’t want to hurt you, because you are mentally ill and mentally ill people – so as other ill people – needs help and symphathy. But on the other hand I also do not believe, that personal storys or any information regarding a person’s life should impact to say honest critic about his/her work. A work, the person believes is good enough to sell it to people or call it ’literature’. I do not understand how the world arrived to the point when every bored person can call him/herself a ’writer’? Have you ever read real writers? Dostojevskij, Thomas Mann, Hesse, Jack London or any other – oh my God! – European or Asuan writers? REAL writers? A bit of humuility maybe? I got the ’book’ – sorry, this is not a book, this is just a printed something – furiously happy as I am a psychology student and people believe that if I am interested in mental sickness, I am interested in people’s written confessions about their feelings. That is actually true, and even in a modern way, like Elizabeth Wurtzel didi t in the Prozac nation, can be impressive and so amazing. That was a real thing, a real confession about depression, mental illness and it was a self-therapy as well to write about it. Every writer is somehow ill, sick or suffering in some way, and writing is a self-therapy as well. But the level of the quality should keep in mind. No, I am not furious (haha, no, not happy at all) because you write about crazy things. These are anyway not crazy, they just infantile, primitive and so f*cking common. This is not literature! In a blog, ok. We used to it, what every school girl or bored mother is writing something in the internet, but print it and call it book? This makes me sad. Sad, that what humanity did with literature. Your writings to literature is like Trump to politics. The dictature of the uneducated mass who rules with its power of shamelessness, who is proud to be low quality and doesn’t want to change. And one more thing: keep in mind – If you build up a career on being mentally ill, you will never be cured as you won’t be motivated to. The ego needs attention, and you have it from your illness. If you want to be cured and make your and your family’s life better, stop talking about it and find a REAL therapist! Decide, if you really want to change, or now this illness is defining your identity and you afraid, that you loose yourself, if you let it go. You loose what – you think – is interesting in you. But do you really want a SELF that is identified by suffering? Even if you are making or at least trying to make fun on that, it is still there. It is only you, who can say, what it is. It can be, that in the end it is just your brain, biochemistry is doing it. But it shouldn’t define your whole entity! Good luck!

    (Sorry you didn’t like the book. It’s not for everyone. ~ Jenny)

  42. That sign is clearly marking the entrance to the Upside Down. Any Barbs harmed or ensuing gorgon manifestations which result from your failure to heed the warning are 100% your own fault, and we are NOT coming down there to rescue your ass.

  43. I’m sad I missed your NPR cameo!

    As for the sign….I see “no breakdancing” was suggested, so…? If you kind of squint at it, it’s a bit reminiscent of a Playboy Bunny logo smoking a pipe incorrectly. And it makes sense…I mean, it’s pretty clear why you shouldn’t be doing THAT in the middle of the street.

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