Why do they let me write this stuff?
The traffic cone. We pass them every day without a second thought. Maybe it’s time for a change.
It was a Sunday in February. The sun was shining, the birds were in the sky (where they belong) and I was wearing my spring hat and my best shoes. People asked me, “Why are you naked except for that straw hat and those galoshes?” But I had other mysteries of the universe on my mind: charcoal, Three’s Company, and FedEx. Naked, I got in my black and white Crown Victoria. I told the driver to take me around the block, but he was only interested in taking me to jail for “indecent” exposure. As the sirens blared down the road to jail, I realized how inconsiderate I had been my whole life. Every day I pass traffic cones, but never, not even once, had I thought, “Do traffic cones desire?” I was ready to explore — partially because of my revelation but mostly because I was trapped in the back of a paddy wagon.
Three days later, as I left the jail cell and stretched my legs, I came across it. A sign. It read: “Slow for Construction.” However, construction zones are commonplace, so I continued about my business.
A day and a half later I came across a traffic cone. It was a sign. It indicated to me that there was a pothole up ahead and that I should be careful where I walked.
A week later I remembered my question, “Do traffic cones desire?” So I bought one online, and after some romancing we consummated our love. It was sticky and plasticy and very unpleasant, even painful at times. However, after I had crushed it with the entirety of my body weight, something about the way it uncrumpled told me, “Well done.” It was the kind of thing that goes unsaid, that hangs in the air, like a subtle smile or a light caress. Yet those things were impossible as a traffic cone doesn’t have a mouth to smile or fingers to caress. What a traffic cone does have, however, is a clitoris.
Written by: Parker Nevin — phnevin@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
