Proof that I should be in charge.

I have a BRILLIANT idea.

I think I mentioned that I was on vacation in Maine this week, and as I drove home on Thursday to go back to work, I ran into a bit of traffic. This was neither unexpected nor unusual, since I was getting close to Boston...soon to be renamed "City of Eternal Construction and NO THE BIG DIG IS NOT DONE YET YES IT HAS BEEN MORE THAN 10 YEARS IT WILL NEVER BE DONE IT IS A BIG CONSPIRACY AND A HUGE HOAX DON'T ASK ANYMORE." (It's a long name, but seems to save time when people ask where you're from if you just give all that info up front, because if you say "Boston," there's going to be a series of questions resulting in the above statements.) In any case, I digress. So, I ran into some traffic.

Turns out they were repaving the highway. Now, I'm sure many of you have driven by a highway repair crew doing some repaving, but have any of you had the chance to drive by it so slowly that you get an up-close-and-personal view of exactly what the machines are doing? I've seen some post-pavement cleaning, and some pre-pavement preparations; but never have I had the chance to see them actually IN the process of laying down the pavement. It's actually kind of cool - there's this big truck and it lays down pavement, 1 to 2 inches thick and a whole highway lane wide, all at once. As the truck drives, it leaves behind highway that looks ready to go. (Now, of course it's not, since it's still hot and all, you'd probably ruin it by driving on it, but it *looks* ready which is really cool.) And I noticed, as I drove by this event quite slowly, that the traffic I was in was not from the lane closure but from people fascinated by this magnificent machine.

Hmmm...I thought to myself. This is similar to the phenomenon that happens at evening rush hour here in Boston - there is ANOTHER magnificent machine that goes along the highway and moves those huge concrete highway dividers (I think they're called NJ dividers or something...they're about the length of one car each and they put them up to block off a lane usually when doing construction or something...know what I'm talking about?). Well, in Boston we use those highway dividers to widen one side of the highway or another depending on the direction of rush hour traffic. In the morning the side that goes into the city is wider, and then the machine comes through in the afternoon and moves the dividers and the side that leaves the city is wider. Makes sense enough. Anyway, what's marvelous about this machine is that it picks up and moves these dividers in a fluid motion, as if they were all one unit. And it does it fairly quickly, considering these dividers are built to be solid and heavy enough to stop a car should someone go flying into one of them. Anyway, I think it's really cool to watch. But the issue is, it causes more traffic than it alleviates because apparently the rest of Boston agrees with me. Even though it makes the lanes wider, traffic still bottlenecks because everyone slows down to look at it.

It was at this point that I realized what we ought to do. About 5 miles before any fun-looking machines are going to do work on a highway we put up a big sign that says "WICKED COOL MACHINE DOING WORK 5 MILES AHEAD IN LEFT LANE. RUBBERNECKERS PLEASE GET INTO LEFT LANE NOW. THOSE NOT WISHING TO LOOK AT COOL MACHINE'S MAGICAL SKILLZ, GET INTO RIGHT LANES." Then, we put cops up by the wicked cool machine. And they give out tickets to anyone trying to rubberneck from the right lanes. You have to choose. If you're feeling curious, you choose to get into the left lane. If you're in a hurry, you get into the right lane.

Now, there's some kinks in this plan, I know. What if people change their minds? We'd have to find a way to make it illegal or impossible for this to happen...either make it such a huge fine that it deters people from changing lanes, or maybe put up some of those orange barrels (easier to move, and I don't think they need a fun machine to be moved so when they were being put out it wouldn't cause traffic) to prevent lane changes after a certain point. And we'd clearly have to make the ticket for rubbernecking from the right lanes pretty huge too, and have some very astute cops. But overall, I think this could work. And it could create some jobs, which is good for the economy and all.

Anyway, just some proof that I'm brilliant and should be in charge.

Of course, I don't want to be in charge. Who the hell wants that job? ICK. Too much pressure to solve everything. I'd just rather have it recognized that I should be in charge because I'm so wicked smaht and have people bring me bon-bons and hang on my every word when I have a brilliant idea and leave me alone otherwise.

That's not too much to ask, is it? ;)