Having just come back from a convention in Las Vegas, I am once again reminded of the joys of traveling. I was going to write about my experiences, but I couldn’t say it better than this reflection I wrote in August, 2008.

If you’re traveling this summer, you’re about to become the beneficiary of a failed policy that allows just about anybody to declare himself a signage expert with absolutely no government oversight.

I find this shocking. You need a license to drive a car, but just about any idiot who’s ever owned a sheet of paper and some felt markers can set up shop as a signage expert and begin advising on the proper location of signs in public places such as airports. He can also become a parent, but that is a separate discussion.

I think the day has come when we seriously need to lobby our elected officials to make signage something over which they exercise control.

Not that I mean to blame the government for everything that’s wrong in our country, even though doing so will make me right 99% of the time.

Still, the number of stars and planets and molecules in the galaxy is astounding. I have seen the number written down only once, but the memory of that moment has stayed with me. It was a “1” followed by this long string of zeros, and the occasional comma. It reminded me of the day I dozed off over the keyboard of my old Remington electric and typed

(When I woke up, sadly, I could not remember what was going on, or coming off. All I know is she was still fully clothed and remains so to this day.)

Yet despite all that vastness, it is a matter of fact, as indisputable as the lips on a chicken, that there is one point in the universe where everybody winds up.

And that point is in an airport, in front of, next to or underneath some sign.

As notable a fellow as Einstein took time to point out the problem of unchecked signage in a footnote to his theory of relativity. He wrote, “Man cannot travel faster than the speed of light because there will always be a sign someplace he will stop to read.”

(Einstein was also first to propose the theory of six degrees of separation, which states, “In any airport you will always be separated from where you want to be by at least six people all reading the same sign.” Unfortunately, Einstein’s agent could not sell the movie rights and so his contribution in this area is pretty much forgotten.)

The modern day airport has been designed with the help of industrial designers who never read Einstein’s theories, despite spending so many years in college most professors thought they were on the football team.

Instead, these scholars (and I use the word only because my thesaurus recommends it) spent their time playing poker. This is the kind of training they bring to airport design when they sit down with airport owners across the country.

Instead, we should be asking what is it about signs that makes people, who are anxious to get from point A to point B in the first place, come to a total halt in front of one that reads “Sink Closet.” Is it that they are wondering if the sign should be taken literally and, if so, what could you could possibly get past airport security that would enable you to sink the closet, even if you were so inclined?

Or is it just that people are afraid that in our litigious society one’s actions cannot be hasty and must be the product of what lawyers call “due diligence?”

Whereupon, everyone moves down the way looking for a “Welcome to California” sign to stand in front of.

What can we do?

I have no idea. (This is the reason I did not go into politics, among others.)

But as long as we’re asking our elected representatives to take care of this, we might as well have the government eliminate other things that cause airport travelers to clump together like your mother-in-law’s gravy.

These would be anything with an entrance or an exit, such as escalators, elevators, jetways, departure lounges, airplanes, moving walkways, staircases, restrooms and Starbucks stores.

We don’t actually have to get rid of them. We just ask the government to give them a new name. Call them all “lines.” This is the one place people hate to stand.

I am sure that if we all come together on this we can solve the problem.

And when we all come together, let’s take the train.