Australian road signs freak me out. Like today, Matt and I noticed one of these 'people crossing' signs over another sign, which in large, upper-case, ominous letters read: 'IN SIDE STREET'.
Something about the composition of these two signs suggested to me that whatever ferocious misfortunes were being visited upon these poor figures, the fact that it was happening IN A SIDE STREET was somehow compounding their suffering.
I explained this to Matt.
He now knows me well enough to know that he has a choice of either silently tolerating my weird; or jumping in and going with it. His heavenward glance and sigh gave nothing away about the way he was going to go before he asked me what I meant.
I replied: Well - they're clearly recently escaped victims of a chainsaw murderer, who enjoys half decapitating people before cutting off their extremities to keep as trophies and these poor bastards in the SIDE STREET, there, have just managed to drag themselves off on their stumps in an attempt to reach safety, while the mainstream populace are being warned away from the area, thereby isolating them further and condemning them to a long, slow, bloody death. It's deplorable really. I'll write to the Council directly.
Matt retorted: No it's not that - it's just there's been a terrible sewage leak and the people are wading off out of the SIDE STREET in search of some clean socks.
To which I responded: No, no, NO! It simply can't be that, Matt. See the man on the left there? See how his limb has been severed at an angle? If he'd just been traipsing through some effluent, that line at the bottom of his lower-right leg would be horizontal, but no. It's a gory stump. Mark my words!
But, says Matt: What if the Council has already been alerted to the catastrophic spill and has sent some workers over in a speed boat to assess the damage. They've just swept past this chap and his girlfriend and the strange angle you're seeing at the bottom of his leg is in fact the backwash of sewage after the passage of the boat.
Ah! I conclude smugly: But how do you explain the fact that said chap's right leg is so much longer than the left? If he straightened his legs he'd have a mighty discrepancy in leg-length to be contending with. Now it's just possible he's afflicted with some congenital disorder but my money is on Murder and Mayhem.
Matt looked heavenward once more - which, right enough, for an atheist is an odd thing to do but then, the imminent threat of chainsaw murderers will maybe do that to a person.
