Please…

Between where I live and the main drag where I go to the grocery store, liquor store, thrift store and bank is a 10 minute stretch of road dotted with four way stops. It can be a less than pleasant drive, depending on the time of day, in part because no one in this city knows what to do at a four way stop. There are several schools of thought:

One says that a four way stop is like a free for all where everyone drives at once and then the fastest car gets where it’s going and the other three get into an accident. Good times!

Another school of thought says that a four way stop is where the biggest vehicles get the right of way. You know, because they’re big. I mean, why else would you buy a Lincoln Navigator?

My favourite, though, is the inferiority complex school. The people who think that a four way stop is their personal punishment, like a hair shirt. They sit there, letting everyone else go. Then letting everyone else go again, because probably there is still something for which they should be atoning.

Did I say 10 minute drive? Sometimes, barring any unforseen trips to the hospital or carfixitplace, it takes as many as 15! I’ve never lived this far from a liquor store before. It’s traumatic! But I digress.

Along this merry route there is also an elementary school and its associative school zone. In school zones, the speed limit is 30 kph. That’s fair enough. At 30 kph you couldn’t really kill anyone, just maim a little. Depending on the size of the kid. Everyone slows down for the school zone. (that makes it a 20 minute trip if you’re going before 5 pm…grrr!) I have never seen a single person going more than 30 in the school zone, even during summertime. It’s bizarre, when you consider that we’re all idiots.

Because we are all travelling so slowly, we have plenty of time to look at things, like the 30 kph sign, the bumper sticker in front of us (If you can’t see my mirrors, smile as you go under!), the full moon, whatever. And every time I go through this school zone when it’s school hours – between 8 and 5 – I see the following sign, right by the side of the road on somebody’s front lawn:

“Please”
slow down.
Our children are worth it!

My quarrel, in this case, is not with children and their relative worth. I don’t have any children but I know that other peoples’ children are really important to them. I even understand why. I don’t even really mind that they are telling me to slow down, despite the many 30 kph signs and the fact that no one ever speeds there. EVER! It is possible that people only don’t speed because of the sign, in which case, I’m all over the sign. The problem, dear readers, lies in the first line of the sign: “Please.”

The word in quotation marks is “please”.

The above sentence is an example of the acceptable use of quotation marks in a sentence.

People, people, people. Creative spelling is one thing. I say (write, I guess, is more accurate) “catt,” yes. I say fancypants. These are my words. I don’t shout them across the street from an elementary school. They are purely self-expression. By using them I am only trying to achieve more clever communication. Really. I know, you’re all shattered.

Creative punctuation is another thing. There are few things I hate more than the incorrect use of an apostrophe. Its, it’s, its’. Rules! They exist for a reason. No, not a “reason,” a reason. FUCK!

If you say “please” instead of please, does that mean you really don’t want me to slow down? Or are you really not saying please, you’re just being fakely polite? You would rather just say “Slow Down” but someone told you that was rude, so you added “please” but you added the quotation marks so everyone would know you didn’t really mean it? What? WHAT? Teach your goddamn children well!

I was going to write a letter to the editor of the (really crappy and a whole other topic for a different day) Burnaby Now. But then I thought: No! I have a blog! That’s what they’re for!

I used to have Australian pen pals. They used quotation marks like a junkie uses junk. It was so confusing. I wonder if the school sign people are Australian OR if there is some rule I don’t know about. Does anyone know? Is anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me…