May Jesus Be With Your Signage

Over the holidays I dropped by the Portuguese Consulate in Newark, NJ to take care of some top secret diplomatic business. An engineer by trade, I secretly harbor an anal-retentive designer in the depths of my heart. While waiting to take care of some important business, I peered over at the welcome signage and cried out in pain.

Hallelujah! Jesus-Christ-certified Identity Cards!

Jesus Christ! They spelled bilhetes with a Latin Cross (✝)! This was also the only occurrence of this most holy swap on the entire signage. I didn’t have the gall to ask the front desk what was up with the Jesus-infused character set. Was it a zealous designer subtly informing us that Catholicism is the dominant religion in Portugal? Maybe. I’d like to believe it was divine interven✝ion…