Stop!

I may be dreaming, but it seems that the wretched traffic light at Lewiston’s Pine and Bates streets is a little bit quicker to change from red to green these days. Of course, it couldn’t get any slower without defying the laws of physics. I have it on good authority that this particular traffic light is powered by ancient sundial technology. You can grow a beard waiting for that light to change. Women included, that’s how God-awful slow it is.

Use ya blinkah!

I have this weird habit of tracking the various people who do various annoying things on the roads and highways. Do you know who is most likely to jump into the turnpike passing lane and then refuse to budge from it? Young women, that’s who. Do you know what group is most apt to avoid using his or her blinker, no matter how many turns he or she makes? Older folks. Most likely to park in the fire lane – if not directly in front of the doors – at the supermarket? Young men, who apparently are not up to the 20-foot walk from an actual parking space. You can question my findings if you want, but my methods are pretty rock solid.

I feel safer already

In Michigan, some poor fellow was ticketed for – this may cause you to snatch up your children in fright – warming up his truck on a cold winter’s morning. In his own driveway. Which he’d been doing for many, many years before this Grinchly cop crept into his yard and slapped a $128 ticket on his windshield. The response from the police department? It’s for your own good. You’ll thank us later. Now fork over the dough or we’ll throw you in jail. Coming soon to a driveway near you? You scoff at the notion, but police departments all over the place have really been upping their revenue collection game.

Yoink!

I got a letter in the mail this week that was so packed full of good stuff – from toilet exploits to first jobs to those stupid auto-locking cars – that I could literally copy and paste the missive and get a solid column out of it. In fact, you know what? Just forget you ever read this item and enjoy next week’s column.

Warming trend

So, I write a scathing article about the horrors of January, and the very day it runs in the paper, the sun is bright and the temperature soars to 55 degrees. I tell you, Mom Nature never forgave me for that thing with her sister.

Proof of life

In response to my musing on the idea that I might be dead, a former school teacher wrote in with an awesome story, She recalled a day many years ago when several kids on the playground walked up to her and wordlessly squeezed her hand. Why did they do it? Because the school teacher had been sick and the kids had heard she was dead. They were squeezing her hand to prove to themselves that she wasn’t a ghost. Eh? Great story. And if someone doesn’t come up and squeeze me in the next few days, I’ll be convinced all over again that I’m a walking corpse.

Just kidding

Don’t squeeze me. I’ll cut you, man.

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