Lost in Translation: The Case of the Disturbing Do-Not-Disturb Sign

Last weekend, my husband Dave and I had to take a business trip to Panama City Beach, Florida. The trek is about two hours from our home, so we spent the night at a hotel near the PCB Hobby auction house where their team was livestreaming Dave’s wares. If I haven’t mentioned it before, Dave is a world-renowned pop culture magazine and comics cover artist (and, per the fans’ votes, the #1 STAR WARS Artist.) Here’s an example of one of Dave’s oil paintings:

The next morning, Dave had to go back and do more autograph signings and remarques (those little sketch drawings that accompany autographs on comic book covers and art prints), so I remained at the hotel to chill. I’m not a fan of urgency before 11 a.m. I like to slink into my day after listening to my favorite podcast.

In my time blindness world, noon came all too quickly. I couldn’t hang out in the room much longer. I exited with my rolling suitcase, noting the cleaning service cart was just one room away. He or she was deep into cleaning another room, vacuum roaring; they wouldn’t see or hear me leaving. I flipped over the plastic “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on my door to signal my room was ready for them. Problem solved!

Except it wasn’t.

One side of the plastic sign said “Do Not Disturb” with a nighttime sleeping graphic. When I flipped it over, I assumed it would say “Please clean the room.” It did not. Instead, it said “Do Not Disturb” with a daytime sleeping graphic on it. There was no “Please clean the room” option. I flipped it back and forth two more times to make sure my brain was processing the information, because I do get Doppler-like lags in my auditory and visual processing sometimes. This did not compute. Surely the cleaning people aren’t cleaning rooms at night and need a reminder not to bust in on sleeping guests? Why would they need a nighttime sleeping sign? It’s not like this hotel served room service. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

I froze like a deer in headlights. Weird situations like this cause me to panic and perspire. “What do I do? Which side do I use? Why am I so retarded?” (Well, we all know why. It’s my Au-ADHD condition.) I impulsively yanked the sign off of the door knob and whipped it onto the floor in front of my door.

I saw no clear path to winning. Either I was an asshole for littering the floor with the door sign, or I was an asshole for holding up the room from being cleaned for the next hotel guest. I beat a hasty retreat to the front desk check out with wet armpits, my face, neck, and chest flushed with shame.

I can remember reading in history class about The Seven Years’ War. It got kicked off in in 1756 because of a miscommunication. As I recall, the French arrived on American soil to deliver a diplomatic message to George Washington. Our troops misunderstood because of a language barrier, and George Washington’s men ended up killing the messenger, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. One miscommunication sent everything FUBAR. It even mushroomed tensions between the British and the French.

I mention this only to point out the mission-critical importance of clear, concise communication. Without it, people go crazy. Friendships end. Wars get waged. Nations go scorched earth on each other.

You might think a confusing Do-Not-Disturb sign is benign enough. I’m old enough to remember Michael Douglas going postal in the film FALLING DOWN: The adventures of an ordinary man at war with the everyday world. That stupid piece of misguided doorknob plastic could be one frustrated traveling salesman’s final trigger.

FALLING DOWN’s subtitle aptly describes the life of any ADHDer. We’re in a constant war against the everyday world. It’s why I’ve become the self-assigned ADHD Whisperer, writing my book to explain to the rest of the world why and how we need to reduce confusion and friction for everyone, not just we ADHDers.

I seek to live in a time where the next beauty contestant boldly declares, “We all have goals and aspirations. Mine is to generate world peace through better Do Not Disturb sign copywriting.”