It’s been a while since the last search for Signs of Intelligent Life, but a recent trip to Poland has led to a new SOIL. They do things a bit differently in Poland:
For instance, they honored America’s first president by naming a street after him. However, they don’t know how to spell his name. At all.
You might think this was a warning to watch for children near the street. It turns out it’s actually an alert for diabetics, tipping them off to the presence of small girls with ludicrously oversized lollipops.
I managed to repeatedly read this incorrectly as “Pies!”. Apparently, this is a pedestrian warning sign, with Piesi being Polish for “Pedestrians”. That’s far less exciting than the thought of delicious rhubarb pie, and really, not at all deserving of an exclamation point.
Caution: Man moving triangles! Possibly with a pizza peel!
Ultimately, though amusing, these signs aren’t actually unintelligent. The real lack of intelligence rests with the non-native who couldn’t speak the language. Sometimes, the most rewarding searches are those which cause us to look inward and discover something about ourselves. That, or those which lead to the discovery of buried treasure or something. Those are pretty rewarding too.
