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I’m fascinated by the icons used on signs and notices. Their attempts to replace written words with pictorial representations run the gamut from spot-on to terrible. The ones with stick figures are often parodied, but nothing beats the real thing.

For an example, I give you the sign I saw in the airplane toilet on my trip last week.

The sign shows where used tampons should go. Probably. Anyway, what is far more interesting to me is the relative scale of the woman and the tampon. I can only imagine what Charles Dickens would have made of it.

“What’s to-day?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

“EH?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

“What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.

“To-day! Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.”

“It’s Christmas day!” said Scrooge to himself…. “Hallo, my fine fellow!”

“Hallo!” returned the boy.

“Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner?” Scrooge inquired.

“I should hope I did,” replied the lad.

“An intelligent boy! A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Tampon that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Tampon, — the big one?”

“What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy.

Yes, young man. The one as big as you.

I’ve decided that I like youth sci-fi books. It’s only taken Stephen 12 years to get me to the level of a 15 year-old sci-fi reader. Except Scott Westerfeld’s stories read like grown-up novels. I’ve read the Uglies series. I’ve just today finished the two Peeps books. And there are three series of his I’ve yet to even check out. Between him and John Scalzi, I’ve got whole new worlds are opening up to me. Ha!

Normally I drink a reasonable amount of caffeine. I average between one and three sodas a day. I drink coffee, but it’s the decaffeinated kind; Coke is my caffeine delivery vehicle of choice.

But every August, I drop most caffeine sources. It’s not a total ban — I continue to drink decaffeinated coffee, which has some caffeine in it, and I eat chocolate — but it’s a substantial reduction. My friend John got me started on this some four years ago. It’s not something I absolutely need (says the junkie). I don’t have heart trouble that caffeine would exacerbate, and caffeine doesn’t have a huge effect on my sleep schedule. I do find it a useful counter to my tendency to drink ever-increasing amounts of soda as time goes on. The first two months after my one-month ban, I’ll drink one soda a day. Then I move to two, and then three. I don’t go much beyond three, though yesterday I had my usual complement of three cans of soda plus a glass or two at lunch. Clearly this is an exponential trend that, if left unchecked, would leave me with a ten-gallon-a-day habit by next year.

So far I have a mild headache. Experience tells me that that headache will reappear tomorrow as well, but that by Friday I’ll be fine. Really, as DTs go, this is as mild as it gets.