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phone on the bus? There’s only so much real estate on a telephone pole, I suppose, so the messages that do get posted have to be really important—a.k.a., in service of protecting the economy. If these beetles get around, they’re going to cause millions if not billions of dollars in damage, whereas if I drink the water from Lost Lagoon because I haven’t seen a sign telling me not to, no one will be impacted except the other people who live in my one-bathroom apartment.

Beetles mostly get spread around by landscapers, who inadvertently transfer them from district to district in bags of yard waste. The signs are helping to remind city crews to be mindful with soil and plants, I guess in the same way that my workplace often has similar notes and reminders for us as team members (e.g.: “Your mom doesn’t work here! Please clean up after yourself after using the Corporate Sobbing Chamber!!!”).

It’s hard to tell if the call for vigilance is paying off. Sure, 8,276 beetles were caught in 2018, and in 2020 there were just 214, but does that mean numbers are going down, or that the beetles are just getting smarter? Perhaps they’ve learned how to read after all and now they’re laying low—the wisest thing to do, really, when cancel culture comes for you. Got

Start the year on a delicious note.

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