I can travel a few different ways to work and sometimes, because I like to think I'm foiling a stalker or predator, I vary the route (I also have a lifetime of working in ridiculously unimportant, nondescript jobs that would attract no attention so I'm the kind of guy if the bad guys kidnapped me, they'd let me go, after apologizing and giving me a few bucks for the trouble). I'm not ever going to have an adventurous job, so why not?
I can take a an interstate and then use a state road, more of a cut across to another state highway that takes me to work. The cut across was built about a decade ago as the Mohegan Sun was coming on line as a casino and the Route 2A bypass became a big deal (and it also enabled travelers to come from Route 395 to the casino or staying on it travel over the Pequot Bridge and hang the left at the intersection with Route 12 and head over on Route 2 to the Foxwoods casino (we have the Double mint Twins of Gaming (clever how the marketers eliminated the "B" and the "L", eh?)). If you wanted to save time, you could roll the car window down as you traveled over the bridge and throw your money into the Thames-but what would the sport of that be and where would we get the wonder of it all, if you did?
Not sure what the construction crews are up to on the by-pass but there's a LOT of heavy equipment and those huge mats and nets that they drag out when they are using explosives (lots of rock shelf on either side of the bypass) and my favorite part right now, but only because I don't have a two-way radio to turn off at certain hours, is the large orange sign that, in addition to talking about the two way radios and the blasting, tells me "Be Prepared to Stop" in large yellow letters on a cyclic basis.
It's okay-if a little less than romantic. It's like the sign on 395 just past the State Trooper barracks, across from the gas station that advises "Speed is monitored by aircraft." Yeah, but so what? Where's the shock and awe in that? How about "Speed monitored by dirigible." That would make everybody wish they had a sunroof or a front seat spotter just so they could keep an eye out for the Hindenburg (except we probably wouldn't drive slower, and looking out the roof instead of the windshield, there'd be more accidents).
So, how about on that orange warning sign we have something different like "Be Prepared to Tango"-no mean feat considering we are all sitting in cars and trucks and the Tango doesn't have a chair in its steps anywhere. "Be Prepared to Smile"--"Be Prepared to Rapture" (I'm not sure if you can use a noun, much less what, for some, is a proper noun, as a verb, but the Tango people didn't mind so I'm hoping the Rapture folks are cool with this). Or "Be Prepared to Boogaloo" (and there's someone on the shoulder handing out gold chains or necklaces with coke spoons hanging off them, platform shoes and elephant-leg bell bottom trousers). And, just how much preparation to stop does a body need in the first place? Right there, that little dot at the end of this sentence, that is a period which is a grammatical stop. No heavy nets, no orange signs, no yellow letters-just halt.
See? That was easy. Now where did this Hai Karate after-shave come from and who left this eight track cartridge in the front seat?
-bill kenny
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