I Can't Stand It!
I am not an irritable person. Really. Not many things will get under my skin. But I absolutely cannot stand it when gas stations put the 8 upside-down on their signs. I just can’t stop staring at it. 99.9 percent of the general public will never notice it, but I can’t help but shake my fist in frustration. “Can’t you people get it right!”
I mean, it’s pretty obvious once you look at it. There is a distinct typographical difference between the bottom circle of the 8 and the top. You would fix it if you put the 9 upside-down, right? (That is to say, unless they use an upside-down 9 intentionally as a 6, or an upside-down 7 as an L, but that’s another story.) So this is my plea to all Fuel Distribution Sales Clerks: pay attention to the 8s, and let me drive in peace.
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Published January 26, 2005 by:
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The uncontestable proof of the evil nature of the oil industry, I guess.
Or, maybe, the font they’re using has a larger “top circle” than the lower one… for added shpiel!
January 26th, 2005
“You would fix it if you put the 9 upside-down, right?”
You’d hope so, but I’m not so sure. There’s one gas station/car wash near my office that always puts their Zs and Ss backwards. Not just upside-down, but backwards. Drives me nuts.
January 26th, 2005
I remember changing the prices on gas when I was in high school. What a fun job. I had the pleasure of being watched by car-passer-byers just waiting to see if I would be lowering or upping the price. We eventually got down to $1.03, we had the cheaptest gas in San Diego county for years.
But just to point something out, I think our 8’s were syntrical? is that a word? someone help me out here. Anyway both sides of the 8 were the same.
Symetrical? Arg.
January 26th, 2005
Why don’t you drive over and mention it to the clerk, I am sure he/she would be very interested and receptive to hear they made a typographical misrepresentation.
January 26th, 2005
I had been surfing around your sight for at least 20 minutes before I read the post regarding the 8. Instead, I spent 15 of those minutes trying to ignore the upside down 8, like a person with an OCD trying to ignore a dirty room… It was DRIVING ME NUTS lol. You’re SO not alone.
January 26th, 2005
That sorta things piss me off as well. It’s so easy to do that right, then DO IT!
January 26th, 2005
deliberate? maybe the want typography geeks to notice it and crash, then they’d need to get their car fixed in their garage.
January 26th, 2005
Thanks for making my day, Steve!
Little typographical things like that irk me to no end. The worst, though, is seeing Comic Sans. Especially in situations where it is HORRIBLY inappropriate.
January 26th, 2005
And here I thought I was the only one driven crazy by that. I’m glad I’m not alone on that :D
January 27th, 2005
El: That made me laugh… a lot.
Stu: Glad I could help. It’s been bottled up inside for so long… I just had to let it out!
January 27th, 2005
It would really suck if you were frustrated about the upside-down eight, and stared at it as you exited the lot. I’ll bet you’d be more frustrated at that point.
January 31st, 2005
I completely agree! How could someone actually put the 8 up like that and leave it there, and go about life as normal????
January 31st, 2005
Can I make a comment about your site design, Steve?
I’ve had you on a list of blogs that I occasionally check out, and I’ll reveal that there’s something about your site that immediately makes me think “nothing new here” when I hit it….
I started pondering about it now, and I think I found the answer to why it’s so. I think it’s because the new stuff has so little space on your front page. Your front page is 90% static stuff, and then you have that green area in the middle where you have the latest blog entry.
I think you give more space to the design than to the actual content… and that makes it harder to follow the actual content.
Of course… I’m not saying that it’s impossible or even difficult to find out which new things you’ve written in the past few months. But I’m insinuating that your design is kind of “blocking” the visibility of the content in some way.
Of course, this is just one man’s opinion. And I don’t even have a blog myself (yet), so I’m maybe not even qualified to open my mouth, but I thought I’d just let you know what I thought, for whatever it’s worth! :)
February 2nd, 2005
I keep steven on my rss list…so i’ll peak back when I see a new headline.
February 6th, 2005
While we’re on the subject…
“So this is my plea to all Fuel Distribution Sales Clerks: pay attention to the 8’s, and let me drive in peace.”
It should be ‘8s’, as it’s a plural.
March 10th, 2005
Paul: Touché. I’ll fix my mistake, though. :)
March 10th, 2005
I was having a bad day and your post made me laugh right out loud – something that doesnt happen after many years of catholic school and learning to work in a cubicle with high walls and the illusion of privacy!
Blogging is new to me, but I am reading and learning – thanks for your insights both important and not so important.
March 10th, 2005
Thank you for ranting about upside-down 8s… It has been driving me crazy and I finally got online specifically to look this up, and found that yours is the only site I can find that even mentions it.
I can’t believe, though, that it’s simply a mistake! Where I live, the 8s at gas stations are NEVER right-side-up (and it’s not just that I notice only the upside-down ones)... it is as if the gas stations have decided to make it a policy to post them that way. Could it be an attempt at a subliminal message—upside-down 8s seem to point downward like an arrow, making us all feel that our gas prices aren’t as unbelievably high as they are?
The newest instance of this maddening trend? The 8s on my bank statements are now upside down. What is the world coming to?
August 20th, 2005