The Punishment Light

If you drive a car, you have no doubt encountered one of these roadway adversaries. It's the mechanical bully that abuses its power. It wants to make you suffer. Worst of all, it does it without intention or desire, but you know deep down there is a method. That's because its hostility is systematic. It's the product of shatty programming and ass-hat engineering. The middle finger directed at your comfort cruise.

I'm talking about the punishment light. You know what I mean. That one traffic signal on your daily commute that defies all reason. You know its there to make your life hell. The red light of rage.

Backstory:

Earlier this year, I got into the first season of Weeds on DVD. It's a hilarious little show with clever stories and writing, interesting characters, and of course, is full of wordsmithing, like when they refer to the fake bakery as a fakery. How can I not like such a show?

Anyway, in one episode, the main character gets caught at this traffic light that stays red for several minutes for no good reason. There are no cars in any direction. But the light simply doesn't change, and she's left to wait it out. She calls it the punishment light.

The Duel:

I have my own punishment light. On my commute, there is a signal that intersects the main thoroughfare that I take with another side road that leads to residential areas. This side road is very lightly travelled. As you may know, many traffic lights change when a sensor plate in the road is tripped. Which generally make sense. Unless a dumbass flunky calibrated the sensor. Or an evil genius.

See, my punishment light will IMMEDIATELY change over once a car hits the trigger. No delay whatsoever. So if one stupid car pulls up to the light on this side street, they get an immediate green light. I get a foot full of brake pedal. And I hate to have my motoring interrupted. Especially in this godforsaken town of lousy traffic clusterfuckage.

And invariably, some sonofabetch will trip the damned thing every time I motor toward the light. It never fails. And the winner of the blood boiling contest goes to the city bus as it makes a wide turn to clear the curb and trips the damned thing. So I get to wait while the light goes green for NOBODY!

Jackass engineers! While I want to throttle all the people who don't deserve the privilege of using our roadways because of their thriving ineptitude, the punishment light and me... ooh, it's become personal. Man v. machine.

Deus Ex Machina:

This week I had a small victory. A bizarre power outage at midnight left my neighborhood without electricity for about five hours. It wasn't a big problem, but bothersome nonetheless. Anyway, on my way to work later that morning, I cleared the rise in the road to descend upon the punishment light as a cavalryman charges his enemy. And there, rendered useless and adorning a fold-down stop sign, was my powerless foe. It was divine intervention. My deus ex machina - god from the machine. The solution to my problem was found.

Sure, the punishment light was shortly reinstated to its former bullying status. But coasting through the intersection that morning was my betch-slap across its three-eyed face. It was my way of showing that light I knew it wasn't invincible. That I knew it answered to a higher power (no, not God, the power company). And from now on, I will see my punishment light as a tragic figure, tethered to is faulty mechanics, stuck in its ways, and never able to truly move on.