Give me a sign

Today I noticed something.

Looking at the top of my water bottle, I realized that in a small font the lid showed which way to turn it in order to open the bottle. Counter clockwise, of course.

I thought this was really strange because I've been opening up plastic bottles without having to think about which way to open them for a really, really long time. So, I saw this and thought that it seemed so ridiculous. It would only really benefit someone who's lived in a cave all of their life, but managed to teach themselves Japanese and hiragana in the meantime.

It made me think about signs on doors saying whether to push or pull. What's kind of funny is that I am a lot more likely to notice a Japanese sign than I am an English sign. I try to pull at English "push" sign doors and I try to push and English "pull" sign doors all of the time. But, I hardly do that at all with the Japanese signs.

Knowing whether doors are push doors and pull doors isn't quite as simple as knowing which way to open a plastic bottle, but do the signs really help people get it right the first time? Don't you feel kind of like an idiot when you try to pull a door open and you notice that there's a giant "PUSH" sign on it?

There's a sign in the bathroom here at the office next to the toilet paper and those signs drive me crazy. There are two sentences on it and this is how it looks (pretend they're all different characters, rather than just the same one over than over)-

らららららららららららららららららら
らら。　　　　　ららららららららららら
らららららららららららららら。

I always look at the sign and I think that if they just made it a LITTLE wider, they could have fit the last two characters in the first sentence into the first line and then wouldn't have had to have the weird gigantic space between the two sentences in the second row.

らららららららららららららららららららら。　　　　　
らららららららららららららららららららら
ららららら。

See how much neater that looks?

Anyway, there's my blog about signs.