I have the hots for angry traffic flag girl

(661 words)

I’m having mixed emotions about the pending completion of a pivotal bridge re-construction project. Sure, the resumption of normal traffic will be welcome.

But it will come at a cost.

I’ll miss micro-flirting with my angry flag girl.

The bridge between my home here in Youngstown and all the stuff I need to do in Latrobe has been under construction since about April. Crews have been toiling to repair the gateway State Route 982 bridge over U.S. Route 30.

PennDOT considers it enough of a landmark they’ve opted to pay the extra dough to inscribe the bridge siding with tributes to native sons Fred Rogers and Arnold Palmer.

One side says, “It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood;” the other, “A Greater Latrobe Area Legend • Arnold Palmer.”

So it’ll be an inviting target for high school vandals eager to spray paint helpful messages about which local girls are easy.

I’m sure the angry blonde flag girl won’t like that one bit — and not just because I suspect she was once easy in high school.

She’s a dirty blonde. More dirt than blonde. I’ve never seen her without a cigarette and a scowl.

She looks like someone who either loves to drink or just crawls out of bed each day looking naturally hungover.

I sense she hates her job and will murder anyone who dares change lanes without her approval, something no motorist in their right mind would do. She’s too scary to defy.

But there’s something about an angry looking woman waving a traffic flag and telling me just where to go I find irresistible.

I wonder if it’s because my sweet, darling wife — the Lutheran church organist — is her exact opposite in every way.

Val plays “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.”

The traffic babe snaps her flag motioning me it’s my turn to proceed.

I imagine her idea of safe sex is when she leaves the day-glo vest on.

And nothing else.

Maybe she’s one of those people who after 8 hours out there on the hot pavement has trouble even in intimate situations switching off. She must be bossy in bed.

“Okay, move forward. Slowly. Slowly. Now turn to the left. A little more. There. Good. Now keep your eyes on me. I’m about to give you the signal. Not yet. Not yet. Okay . . . now! Go! Go! Faster! Faster! You’re drifting out of your lane!”

I close my eyes and in my mind hear her flag snapping like a whip over and over.

I imagine she keeps a stack of traffic pylons in her bedroom to maintain that feeling of control she exercises all day.

I wonder if she likes her job.

Does she hate her co-workers? Is she miserable? Is her home life a mess?

Sure, I wonder these same things about the men who do the same job. 

I just never imagine what they look like naked.

I once did a story for Maxim about men who married toll booth attendants. They’d fallen in love with and successfully courted women 5-10 seconds at a time over a period of years.

I wonder if that’s what she dreams will happen to her as many of the same cars pass by.

She could be waiting for her knight in shining armor.

But probably not a blogger in a cedar green 2007 Saturn Vue.

She’s never once acknowledged me ever after all the times I’ve made eye contact and mouthed “thank you!” for not directing me over the bridge edge to certain death.

And now as of today, she’ll be forever gone from my life.

She’ll have taken her little red flag to some other desolate stretch of highway, perhaps to charm other strangers who have trouble explaining an odd attraction to something so mean looking.

Don't worry about me. I’ll be fine, I’m sure.

I imagine right about now Val’s in a mood to tell me just where I can go.

Related . . .

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Bird watching in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood

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Flaky thoughts on Atlanta snow traffic nightmare

My strip club history

Cars need energy-saving sleep modes

I was sitting motionless in traffic for so long I began wondering if I could sneak in a refreshing nap. Studies show that a few quick winks can do wonders for increasing our productivity and longevity.

Yet, as I sat there and thought of ways to momentarily shut down for my own benefit, the tank in which I was being cushioned in air-conditioned splendor soldiered on and on, bless its mechanical heart.

The engine of my 2007 Saturn Vue was operating with nearly the same crisp efficiency as if it were powering the vehicle to 65 mph.

Our society is bedeviled by unnecessary motion. We fidget. We’re always on the go. We’re rarely idle.

But our running vehicles often are. It’s an hour drive from my home in Latrobe to downtown Pittsburgh where we go once a week for grannies and giggles. During that time, my trusty Saturn can be completely motionless for up to 25 minutes.

It’s like watching TV in the pre-DVR days when we were all held hostage to all those awful Geico commercials.

I let my mind graze on magazines, books, or newspapers I keep handy for long red lights and the portions of the trip when congestion brings all traffic to a complete halt. But for nearly half the trip, my car continues to consume fossil fuels and pollute the atmosphere when its sole duty is to keep me sheltered from storms or sun and play the groovy tunes that keep my soul sweet.

And I’m not alone. To my left and to my right, from the front to the back for as far as the eye can see are other cars are doing the same nasty and unnecessary business. It’s like being in a mall parking lot at Christmas where all the cars are left running while everyone goes inside and shops.

Why can’t our cars have a sleep mode? Imagine how many fewer barrels of oil we’d need to import if smart cars could power down when the owner instinctively recognized advancing was momentarily futile.

Detroit engineers who right now are feverishly working to find ways to make cars more efficient when they go from zero to 60 need to consider ways to make them vastly more efficient when they aren’t going anywhere.

Concerned motorists everywhere should band together to insist that smart changes are applied to every new car.

It’s a movement I’d lead myself, but I can’t generate that kind of energy.

I never did get that nap.

Impeach Obama

All right, all right. I know I’ve spent the past six months urging friends and frequently blogging that he’s going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread (whole wheat, to be perfectly PC: pigmentally correct).

I know I’ve said his historic election will change the world. And, yes, I know he’s not even president yet.

But, really, we need to impeach Barack Obama anyway.

We need to impeach him because he’s said that his first official act to get the economy moving will, in fact, be an impediment to real progress: mine and yours.

It’s the dreaded infrastructure improvement project. You know what that means: “Left Lane Closed 1,500-feet.” “Merge Right.” “Construction Ahead. Delays Likely.”

Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell said 319 highway and bridge projects worth $1.03 billion could be underway within 180 days of the announcement. Guaranteed, nearly every one of them will be instigated between me and where I want to go.

It also means savvy investors right now are starting to load up on companies that produce those orange traffic cones that’ll soon be lined up from here to the horizon like so many highway luminary.

If it came down to choosing between crumbling infrastructure and traffic delays, I’ll take the declining highways over the increased blood pressure.

It’s still happening around Pittsburgh where a year’s long improvement project has choked off access to the city’s Squirrel Hill tunnel, the eastern gateway to the Steel City I love to visit. All it’s done has subtracted about 20 hours of my productive and leisure time and substituted it with time spent explaining through clenched teeth to my daughter why some words I tell her to never say are okay for me to shout when traffic comes to a standstill.

The idea is that the $1.03 billion spent on these projects will make its way into the pockets of these burly construction workers who will turn around and spend the money to stimulate the economy.

But these guys aren’t dummies. They’ll simply do what they do every six years or so. They’ll use deliberately inferior products that’ll rapidly and unreasonably decay so they can be rehired in about 2015 to go through the whole tedious process all over again. It’s a rigged system.

It would be like me getting paid by cheating you, the reader, simply by repeating the same line twice.

It would be like me getting paid by cheating you, the reader, simply by repeating the same line twice.

So I propose we ditch the infrastructure improvements and just give a huge chunk of the dough straight to the construction workers. They’ll spend the loot on essentials like pretzels, domestic beer, scatch-off lottery tickets and shiny new Steeler gear in anticipation of another great playoff run. They’ll vacation in places like Florida, Myrtle Beach and other resort destinations that could use a jolt of fresh dollars. That way if we do eventually have to stare at their exposed backsides leaning idly over their shovels at least they’ll all have nice tans.

Then take a quarter of the funding and use it to develop a durable road surface that won’t break down, melts snow on contact, is self-illuminating, and deters deer and other gentle woodland creatures from wandering into the path of my already dented fenders. That way we could save billions on snow removal, lighting and future road and vehicle repairs.

Take whatever’s left and someone, please, figure out a way that freelance writers and bloggers like me can get rich on giving away this kind of genius for free.

Then I can devote my time to helping elect a candidate who knows a thing or two about real progress.