The caveman probably didn’t realize how much of an impact he would have on 21-century society, when he began to carve those pictures on the walls of his home. But, the way I figure, that invention ranks second only to his stone wheel. For example…
When we’re driving down a road and see a yellow, diamond-shaped sign that shows an antlered animal in the jumping position, we all know the sign is not alerting us to a John Deere dealership at the next exit, but rather to be on the lookout for whitetails that are likely to cross in front of the vehicle. That picture saves a lot of words, is easy to understand, and is, let’s face it, cute as can be. Icons let us know which restroom to use, the general direction of the next fast-food joint, and whether or not your concealed weapon needs to be left in the car.
Unfortunately, not all graphic symbols are so easily understood.
Last week, I hooked onto my cattle trailer and headed north some 175 miles to pick up a couple of new bulls I’d recently purchased. My neighbor, Ron, agreed to ride along to reduce the monotony of the three-hour drive. We had been on a four-lane, divided highway for over two hours and I had been using cruise-control the entire way before turning onto a two-lane state road for the last leg of the trip. Always curious, Ron asked, “How far have we traveled?”
“Uh-oh,” I replied.
“What is it?”
The instrument panel of my truck usually shows the odometer, trip meter, outside temperature, and miles remaining until I’m out of fuel, but the only thing showing was a gigantic picture of a… wrench. I just pointed to it so Ron could see what had gotten my attention.
“Well, that can’t be good,” he surmised, and I had to agree.
Without a good place to pull over with a truck and trailer, I instructed Ron to pull the owner’s manual out of the glove box and try to find out what the wrench icon meant. Since there were no flashing red lights and I couldn’t smell smoke, I continued to drive, albeit a little bit slower.
Ron was unable to find the list of warning pictures in the manual, but we eventually found an old, deserted filling-station where I could pull over. After searching for several minutes in the 300-page manual, I finally found a listing of all the pictorial icons that could show up on the display. There, beside the same wrench that was now hogging my entire display, were these words: Your transmission is currently experiencing problems and the sensors have defaulted to the limp-home-mode.
I know less about sensors than I do about computers (which is nothing), but I figured that shutting off the engine and allowing it to reprogram might solve the problem, but we were exactly half-way between the last little town and the next little town and I didn’t think Ron could walk that far in the cold. We limped to the next town that had a garage, before pulling over and daring to shut off the engine. It worked! When I restarted the truck: no wrench.
“I wasn’t too worried,” Ron sighed, “Unless a picture appears with a stick man in a canoe, surrounded by brown water, and holding up his hands with no paddle, things aren’t too bad.”
That was probably the icon below wrench.
