At my YMCA, there is a room called the 'Red Room.' As you might imagine, the walls of the Red Room are a deep shade of red. If I were to name this red, I might call it 'Red Delicious.' The Red Room has it's own vibe. It has snazzy, modern exercise equipment which is even networked so that you can chart your progress online. This makes the Red Room sort of an 'elite' area, and the Y likes to make this fact evident with a list of rules on the wall.

Here are the Red Room rules:

1. No Cell Phones!
2. No Personal Bags
3. No Food or Drinks
4. Be Courteous To Your Neighbor
5. Wipe Down Machines after use
6. Have Fun!

One of the goals in the Red Room seems to be to create a sort of quiet meditation place, which is why the 'No Cell Phones!' rule is at the top (and emphasized with an exclamation mark.) There are no TVs in the Red Room. No music is piped through speakers. I like all these things about the Red Room. It's a place to unplug and think seriously about working out. Usually, I'm not a huge fan of rules, but in this case, I think they make sense and help maintain the inner sanctity of the Red Room.

But I'm not sure what the keepers of the Red Room were thinking when they posted the following rule above the drinking fountain: 'Water fountain is for Drinking Only.' Isn't this kind of a sad commentary on the state of America when a sign like this is required? I've tried hard to imagine the strange circumstances that might have lead to the need for this sign. I mean, what other possibilities are there for a water fountain?

There's a lot to be inferred by doing a close reading of this sign. First, the capitalization seems erratic, but maybe there is a reason for it. My first thought was that 'Drinking Only' was actually a proper noun, an employee of the Y, perhaps. In this case, the water fountain is only for that person's use. Strange, yes, but I guess I've seen stranger. Or maybe it's an encrypted message. If you look at the words that are capitalized, they are 'Water,' 'Drinking,' and 'Only.' W-D-O. An acronym? Wellness Determines Optimism.

Second, the phrasing of the sign: If there was only one thing that lead to the posting of the sign, wouldn't they just put a sign saying NOT to do that thing? The most obvious to me would be 'No Spitting in Water Fountain.' But by leaving it open it seems to imply that there were multiple wrong ways in which this drinking fountain was used in the past and so they needed a sign that was general enough to cover all bases.

So I'm opening this up to all of you. What other uses can you think of for a drinking fountain? I'll start things off: A very awkward and difficult to use bidet.

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