Okay. The other day I was on my way to work and I stopped at a traffic light. As you can imagine, the light was red. I was about the third car back from the intersection. A car pulls up behind me, then another one. We’re all here thinking everything is alright and we are having a normal day. After a while we realize we are not. Something is supposed to be happening, and it is not. You watch the clock click off a minute, then another one, and you suddenly realize this day is taking a turn for the worse. I come to this exact spot every day on my way to work. I do not sit here in the road like this. The light is supposed to turn green.
Human beings have this amazing gift of language. I love the English language. My stream of consciousness even takes place in this language. So, with things starting to look down- I start using it. I start speaking to the traffic light. It is not like I suddenly think it has ears. I didn’t roll down the window and shout to it. I just started speaking in a calm voice, reminding it about it’s “to do” list. I know it is short, and repetitious, but that’s its job. Look at the list. I point out to this traffic light that we are all seeing red here, and things could get ugly. So I say, “Okay, what else you got?”
This could be a documentary… “Minute #3.” Negotiations continue in this stand off between commuters and electronic traffic devices…
You may think I’m bonkers for talking to a traffic light. It occurs to me, “this could be a language barrier.” This traffic light may not understand English, and I don’t speak traffic light. Not a word. Something tells me I am the only one thinking this way. It’s a lonely life.
Minute #4. There are 8 cars in this line now. I’m number 3, 5 behind me. Car #6 starts to honk the horn. Well now I don’t feel bad for talking to the traffic light. Somebody thinks loud noises activate electronic equipment. Computer running slow, yell at it- blow a whistle.
I am wondering though, if maybe this is a seasonal thing. “Oh yes, that light is always red this time of year.”
Car #4, right behind me, leans on the horn. That is unpleasant. Maybe I’m going to need to report that I am not the light man. Not me.
As more cars start honking their horns I’m thinking about that poor guy who is first in line. Lots of pressure there. “You’re closest, what’s going on?” Like he can possibly know something. “I think there’s a short in the #6 pin of an integrated circuit in that thing.” Pass it on, we’re going to be here a while.
The honking horns are basically telling guy #1- time for you to break the law. Take a ticket for your fellow man- be strong, be brave.
The light changes. We have been preparing what seems like the whole day for this one moment to arrive. 10 cars at this point, we all get through. We are off to fill 10 parking spaces, write 10 books about our experience, and see who gets the made for TV movie.
