“Let us mourn the passing of the old signs…”
That’s right – let’s take a moment to mourn the passing of the greatest signs ever to hit the department store circuit. These signs would have to be Wal-Mart’s red signs, seen behind this sagging arch of containers. As we speak, the signs are being replaced by more decorative, harder to read, more complicated signs, in Wal-Mart stores across the country. These old red signs were created in the early 1990s, when the big Earth Day thing was going on. Some may notice that these signs are made of recycled plastic. Still, I don’t think Wal-Mart knows what it’s really doing in replacing these signs. For one, I believe these are probably some of the safest things to be suspended over our heads. If something were to happen, like an earthquake or something, these signs are not that heavy, and if they fall, wouldn’t (A) cause much damage – if any – and (B) wouldn’t hurt if they hit anyone. Now if anyone here remembers the signs before the red ones, those babies would hurt. Big wooden ones. And those were ugly, too. Finally, (C) coming back to the idea of the signs falling, these red signs are so simply built that unless they land on something sharp, they can just be picked up, dusted off, and rehung. The successors to the red signs, however, are not so simply built. They’re built of many layers of plastic to create a layered effect. And as a result, if they fell, things would likely break. So let’s all take a moment for a moment of silence (boy, that was redundant), and mourn the passing of the old department signs in Wal-Mart, probably some of the best things to hit department stores in a long time.
Date posted: July 23, 2000