A well-meaning neighbor called the cops to report the ‘SOS’ signal put by someone at the apartment across his own, but it turned out to be a ‘2020’ décor!
It was on the eve of New Year’s Day, December 31, that a man looked out from the window of his 19th floor apartment in Guiyang, China, to check out the festivities he might see below. But he was surprised to see a huge golden sign on the window of an apartment across the street; it appeared to read as “SOS”, the international distress signal.
Photo credit: World of Buzz
Not wasting his time just in case his neighbor needed immediate medical attention, the man called the cops to report the matter. With the details he provided, the cops rushed to the scene as fast as they could. They were able to determine which apartment the kind neighbor had called about, but soon had a good laugh after discovering the real meaning of the “SOS” sign.
It turned out that the woman who lives in that apartment is a childcare teacher who just came from a New Year’s Party at the childcare center she works at. She thought the gold “2020” décor would look great on her window; thus, she decided to put this up.
But the “0” at the end would deflate some hours later – and from the back, the “202” does appear like “SOS”. Because the man from across her apartment had not seen the sign before the last balloon deflated, he thought that this was a genuine call for help. Everyone had a good laugh about the incident, with the woman and the cops thanking the kind neighbor for calling in the ‘distress signal’ even if it turned out to be a false alarm.
The cops advised the woman to take down the remaining numbers as she might alarm other neighbors.
What Does “SOS” Mean?
A lot of people think that “SOS” stands for “save our ship” or “save our souls”. In reality, the term doesn’t really mean any specific words but was used by convention because the signal was much easier to transmit using Morse code.