“Man-Eating Seagull’s Ahead!!”

10 Minute Assignment – Misspelt Signs

It said,

‘Caution Man-Eating Seagull’s Ahead!’

That couldn’t be right. I re-read the sign, its eight-inch high letters clearly stated,

‘Caution Man-Eating Seagull’s Ahead!!’

An incorrect apostrophe, and there were now ‘two’ exclamation marks after the word ‘Ahead’.

I looked beyond the sign. Nothing as far as I could see. I looked back over my shoulders, then above.

I made my decision based upon the literal idiocy of there being any such creature as a Man-Eating Seagull likely to be awaiting my entrance into a modern remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’, and, anyway, everybody knows (or should know) that there are no such things as Seagulls – they are just one of the many types of gulls – herring, black back, horn-rimmed, and so on.

Fully confident in my decision to continue, I stride forward purposefully, and was slightly (okay, totally) oblivious to the large shadow being cast upon the ground by a winged creature that was nearing my exact latitude and longitude.

It was slightly after I clocked the shadow that I felt the purchase of taloned feet upon my shoulders, and the peck of a beak into my neck… and nothing much more after that.

After a while calm returned

The sign had resumed just the one exclamation mark, along with the continued aberrant apostrophe.