This emoji shit is getting out of hand

[Bicycle Bill]

While I was out and about yesterday, I stopped at a competitor of Taco Bell's for a quickie lunch.  The dining room was open, so I went in, placed my order, and took a seat.   Once my food was ready, the counter person brought it out to me on a plastic tray,   On the tray, of course, was a paper place mat.  So far, so good.

However, the image on the place mat looked like this —



Other than the chain's logo in the lower left corner and the nowadays ubiquitous facebook/twitter/instagram icons in the lower right (because everybody and their per poodle has a smartphone and is on social media, right?), there was no other text.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  Nuthin'.

So, naturally, I asked.   According to the counter person, it's supposed to mean, "But first, we taco."
(although I did go online and check this out later.   Apparently I'm not the only one who felt this was, at the least, confusing; one reddit poster suggested it meant 'you can finger my ass if you get me a taco.')

I'm sorry.  I thought that's why we developed an alphabet — so we could form words, and we wouldn't have to try to read (and possibly misinterpret) hieroglyphics any more.

-"BB"-

[Burning Petard]

Once upon a time, long, long ago, I attended a meeting of people with a professional interests in chemical safety to consider some new rules proposed by an agency of the United Nations. There is a group called IATA that has alot to say about air transportation safety, it has been pretty successful. The meeting was to share understandings of the ways to communicate chemical safety information, largely modeled on the way IATA had worked out its particular problems.

There was proposed an international agreement on classification of chemical hazards, as to degree of danger and also at to type of possible harm.

At the time many different systems were in play to do this, actually the UN agency had identified 16 different system of words and symbols in use within some countries or shared among several countries.

They proposed a 17th. It was agreed by a consensus that each of them amounted to a new 'language' that had to be taught to the users. There was no symbol that was actually 'instinctive' or 'universal'.

After the meeting in DC, I drove North on I95 to home. I stopped at a service plaza and went in to the food court to get something, at least a cup of coffee. It was late and not many people around. There in the room I encountered a container with a lid and a symbol on the lid that I could not fathom. Now it is everywhere, but in that first encounter I did not see it as the outline of a hand dropping a drink cup--I just saw a bunch of mysterious lines. My excuse is that it was my first time, and I was looking at it from the top and seeing it upside-down.

snailgate.

[Sue U]

[Long Run]

So, naturally, I asked.   According to the counter person, it's supposed to mean, "But first, we taco."
(although I did go online and check this out later.   Apparently I'm not the only one who felt this was, at the least, confusing; one reddit poster suggested it meant 'you can finger my ass if you get me a taco.')

I'm sorry.  I thought that's why we developed an alphabet — so we could form words, and we wouldn't have to try to read (and possibly misinterpret) hieroglyphics any more.

Look up the kind of famous Gaffney Peach Butt. Been a thing for a long time.

And seriously (not), why wouldn't a taco place come up with a light-hearted, semi-funny pictorial. I think they have restaurants for frownies down the road.

[MGMcAnick]

According to actress Andie McDowell, who is from Gaffney SC, the town has repainted their water tower's peach to not resemble the emoji. I don't see any evidence of that online.