Several weeks ago I was on my way home from the grocery store and I noticed something very familiar:
The puzzle here is that it was in a very unfamiliar place (at least unfamiliar to that particular cone, since the City of Decatur is about 10 miles from where I spotted it). I have developed several theories.
1) Centex Homes is lousy with thieves who are apparently too lazy to steal from someplace far enough away that people don’t know that it doesn’t belong here (or — and this may just be too obvious — too lazy to at least steal cones without another city’s logo on them).
2) Centex Homes has spent all their money for new signage to display the continually reduced prices on their homes and had to go after-market on their cones (economy, bladdey, bladdey, recession, blah, blah, blah).
3) Someone out there knew that I have been longing for Decatur and was trying to send me a cosmic message about finding “my Decatur” out here. Something, something, metaphor about home, yadda, yadda, yadda.
4) Centex Homes decided that by placing a cone with the City of Decatur logo on it over the hole in the sidewalk that’s been there for a ridiculous period of time they could eventually sway public opinion enough that people would realize that the don’t want to live in Decatur (Decatur=holes in the sidewalk) and would find a suitable alternative in the neighborhood that’s just beyond the cone.
5) It’s just a cone and I’m putting way too much thought into it.
6) It’s a conspiracy that they‘ve concocted in an attempt to make it look like I’m losing my mind.
7) I’m actually losing my mind.