Cuidado Piso Mojado

If you have paid any attention over the years, you could have learned a little Spanish just walking in and out of your local fast food restaurant or public bathroom. I was not surprised as I entered the restroom at the mall in Tegucigalpa to find a small yellow sign on the floor; what did surprise me were the words on the sign, "Caution Wet Floor". Or perhaps I should say, even more surprising was the absence of the words, "Cuidado Piso Mojado".


Pause here with me for just a moment...HOW did that happen?

Let's pretend for a moment that I was contemplating bathroom warning signs and I decided that we needed some written only in English; it's possible, maybe I want larger print, maybe I'm really taking to heart the belief that English should be the national language of the U.S.A., you name it! Whatever the reason I had for producing said monolingual beacon of warning, would I really expect to sell many of those in Central America?!?!?!

I say again, HOW did that happen?

I am going to take a stab at this one! There was in fact no ingenious meeting of the market strategy team where they decided to risk lawsuit by not warning their Spanish-speaking customers of the impending dangers of the wet floor. There was however a disingenuous mistake by a line worker at the local "cuidado sign" manufacturing plant, whereby an entire run of said signs came off of the assembly line without the Spanish text. The aforementioned worker is now unemployed and the citizens of Central America risk life and limb with no warnings in their heart language! At least the mall in "Teguc" got an amazing deal on "misprinted" signs.

Love Jesus, Love Others, Walk Worthy!