It’s that time of year again: the ubiquitous “Restrictions in Effect” signs are popping up around the periphery of Bismarck. Restrictions of what nature, you ask? If your only source of information is these signs, I suppose it’s anyone’s guess.

I saw these signs go up two years ago and thought they were pretty funny. Obviously it’s because of the load restrictions on Bismarck roads, which I heard about on the radio, but the signs are vague enough to omit that detail. It’s only after someone figured out what was missing and wedged a little “Load” in there that the signs made sense:

This is how the corrected signs looked last year. I was actually surprised to find an unmodified one posted up along Divide Avenue this afternoon. The top two pictures are from today, the bottom picture from last year. As you can see in this post from last March, I was almost second-guessing whether I’d even seen the signs without the word “Load” inserted. Today’s sighting of one of the original signs is a bit of a vindication, I suppose. Now someone’s going to have to dash up to Divide Avenue with another “Load” sticker!