*E* and I left on Wednesday for a little vacation upstate. So far, since our trip began, I’ve seen three signs that I find disturbing.

The first one was in the car service that took us to the car rental location. The driver had one of those little business gimme calendars stuck to his dash advertising the Quality Car Service, Limousine, and Wedding Center. Huh?!?! One of these things is not like the others.

The Bronx Zoo provided the second disturbing sign. One of the older buildings in the zoo had the following carved in stone above the entrance, National Collection of Heads and Horns. There are so many things wrong with that title that I don’t even know where to begin. Granted it’s from a different era but still. The New York Times has opened their archives in case you care to read about the debut (PDF warning) of this collection.

MASS MoCA was the location of the final sign; however, it was more ridiculous than disturbing. A back hallway off the Anselm Kiefer exhibit brought me to The Rachel & Jay Tarses… wait for it, Emergency Exit! They donated money to have their names on an emergency exit. That’s almost the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard of. It brings to mind an article from Sunday’s New York Times about the vanishing age of anonymous philanthropy.

So there you have it, three really weird signs from our vacation. BTW, two thumbs up for upstate, The Bronx Zoo, and MASS MoCA. They’ve all been super amazing.

UPDATE: I’ve since learned that Jay Tarses is a television comedy writer best known for his work on the Bob Newhart Show and the Days and Nights of Molly Dodd so it’s safe to assume his sponsorship of an emergency exit is intentionally humorous.

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