Right, Left, Right, but Circularly

I’m not a big fan of roundabouts. They are a lot like the metric system. Both, when studied objectively, are a much better ways to do things, but I still don’t like them..

The metric system makes complete logical sense. Everything is based on factors of ten. Take the millimeter, keep multiplying by ten and eventually you end up with the kilometer. Multiply the kilometer by five and you have the most grueling thirty-five to forty-five minutes of my year every April at the Run Rocklin.

Whereas with our imperial system, there is no length unit smaller than an inch, there are twelve of those in a foot, three feet (foots) in a yard, and 1,760 yards in a mile. Great. We also have ounces that can be volume or weight, and neither has anything to do with the other. It’s stupid.

What’s even more stupid is buying beer at a bar by the yard, because “three feet of beer” can be any amount of volume ounces they want based on the inner diameter of the long tube, you have to drink it like some idiot blowing a glass trumpet, and you lose most of it to the classic yard slosh down the front of your shirt. But enough about last Saturday.

Roundabouts make complete logical sense, from a traffic flow perspective. Four-way stops are dumb. Why do I need to completely stop my car at an intersection if I’m the only one there? Why do three of us need to wait next to each other at a red light when no one else in any other direction is there to use the same intersection? It’s dumb. Roundabouts solve those problems with a continuous flow pattern that only requires yielding when someone else happens to be there.

But here’s the thing. No one knows how to use either of them. The metric system is complete nonsense when put into context in everyday American life.

“How far away is the movie theater?”

“One and three-quarter kilometers.”

“Never speak to me like that again.”

“How much gas did the car take?”

“Thirty-seven and a half liters.”

“I hate you.”

And just like the ridiculous metric system, no one knows how to use roundabouts. Everyone seems to know what to do at a stoplight, and about half the people seem to be able to operate successfully at a four-way stop sign. The other half have no clue how or when to turn left, but it’s just become a part of our daily routine to swear at those people and then move on with our lives.

Roundabouts, on the other hand, will always have at least one person who can’t figure it out. If they’re not in it yet, chances are good that they will not yield to those who are. And if they are in it, there’s a better-than-average possibility that they’ll stop in the circle to let someone in.

And that’s just the single-lane roundabouts. Don’t even get me started on when there’s an inside lane and an outside. Why the hell do they even build them like that? What could I possibly want to use the inside lane of a roundabout for? I just love turning left and want to do it all day?

We have a new roundabout in my town that has two right turn options for one of the streets. When approaching the intersection, you can stay in the far right lane and bypass the roundabout to make a right onto the street, or you can enter the roundabout and drive 480 degrees around to the left to end up on the same street. For the love of God.

The police don’t even seem to understand them. At least the police in Alaska. OK, to be fair, it was a campus cop at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks who pulled me over when we were on our way to their natural history museum. Their museum comes with my highest recommendation. Their roundabouts do not.

I had just gone through one of their roundabouts when he lit me up. I pulled over and he told me he had stopped me because I failed to use my turn signal in the roundabout.

Umm…

I was not aware that turn signals were a thing in roundabouts. How does that work, exactly? I would need to approach the entrance to the roundabout with my right blinker on? Once inside, immediately switch to my left blinker for the trip around until I come to my exit point, where I will quickly swap back to my right blinker as I leave the circle? That’s as dumb as getting a yard of beer.

The cop didn’t offer any advice on the matter, immediately switching the subject to my town of Rocklin, California where he had once visited family. We were on his campus in the summertime, and I think he might just have been bored. I didn’t press the roundabout blinker question because it was clear he wasn’t going to ticket me. I think he just wanted someone to talk to.

So, the moral here is clear. If you are going to use a roundabout, do it in a high-crime area where traffic is minimal, yield only when appropriate and necessary, or whenever you feel it would also be the polite thing to do, and just flip your blinker back and forth at random while you are in or near the circle.

And stay out of that ridiculous inner lane.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Brain Child

Our family has officially made the transition. We have unwillingly breached the barrier and found ourselves on the other side. Things are bad.

We have a middle schooler now.

Life was so much simpler last year when Son Number One was still a sixth-grader. For starters, he was still at the same school as the other two. The elementary school is nine feet from our house. School drop off and pick up was a breeze.

Now, Number One goes to school all the way across town. Besides the fact that we’re forced to actually drive the car there, the location presents a few other challenges. A long time ago, when they built the middle school, the Rocklin city planners decided that it would be good to bury it way back in a residential area on a small street. To add to the fun, the only reasonable way into the neighborhood is at an intersection with the world’s slowest traffic light and a six-foot-long left turn lane. I regularly sit in my car, a quarter-mile from the light, listening to five middle schoolers jabber and squinting into the distance to count how many green arrows I’m not able to take advantage of. It’s relaxing.

Then, a few years ago, for reasons unexplainable by actual reasoning, the city planners decided to OK the placement of a Dutch Brothers drive-thru coffee shack on a lot roughly the same size as Juan Valdez’s hat, AT THE SAME DAMNED INTERSECTION. If you are not familiar with Dutch Brothers, they are a coffee company with a cult following. At any time of the day, there are no less than seven hundred cars lining up to get coffee from this place. It’s not as if it’s free beer, so I can only assume they somehow infuse crack cocaine into the coffee during the brewing process. That’s the only logical explanation for the crowds.

Speaking of drugs, I imagine this is how the city planning meeting went:

City Planner One: “Dude, Dutch Bros wants to put a coffee place there.” [pointing to the map and exhaling a huge cloud of bong smoke]

City Planner Two: [taking a rip off the bong] “Cool. Wait. Doesn’t that intersection get kinda crowded sometimes, bro?”

One: “Yeah, man, ‘cause of the school. Have you ever had Dutch Bros coffee, man? I think they put crack in it.”

Two: “Sweet, bro. If we say yes, do you think they’ll give us free donuts?”

One: “Totally.”

Two: “Sweet.”

[more bong hits]

So, between the school traffic and the drug traffic, a helicopter is really starting to look like a cost-effective option for our middle school carpool group.

Unfortunately, the hassle of getting Son Number One and his friends to and from school now is the least of our middle school problems. The main problem is that we have a middle schooler. If you don’t have one, let me explain.

We’ve been noticing a change in Son Number One’s behavior for some time now. Initially, we chalked it up to him just being grumpy because he considered his two younger brothers to be annoying. That was an easy explanation, since they are very annoying. Very.

But the seventh grade orientation slideshow enlightened us to what was really going on. It seems he has something in his brain called a prefrontal cortex, which is Latin for “is this thing on?”. Most adults you meet have smoothly functioning prefrontal cortexes, but all middle schoolers have crappy ones.

Wherever and whatever the prefrontal cortex is, it’s the least-developed part of the adolescent brain. That is great news, since it’s apparently in charge of these things:

*Self control

*Setting goals

*Prioritizing tasks

*Making sound judgements

*Planning and organizing multiple tasks

*Control of moods and impulses

*The ability to reason

*Determining right from wrong

*Determining cause and effect

That list, and the fact that Son Number One’s brain isn’t good at any of it, make so much sense now.

1) Lack of self control -

Me: “Don’t do that again.”

Him: [immediately does it again]

Me: “Now, you’re in trouble.”

Him: “Why?”

2) Bad at setting goals – That explains why his only discernable goal is to eat.

3) Bad at prioritizing, planning, and organizing multiple tasks – That explains why I saw him make a sandwich, put it in the dog’s bowl, kick off only one of his shoes, try to take a bite out of the remote control, and then put his sock in the fridge.

4) Bad at reasoning and determining cause and effect – See Number 1.

5) Bad at making sound judgements – Can’t wait for him to get his driver’s license!

6) Little to no control over moods and impulses – This explains why he’s like living with a schizophrenic spider monkey.

7) Determining right from wrong –

“Please don’t grab your little brother by the ear and neck and try to fling him down the stairs.”

“But, he breathed on my arm.”

(Also see Number 1, 4, 5, and 6.)

Unfortunately, just because we know why he’s so weird right now, doesn’t change the fact that we have to live with it. I guess all we can do is ride it out, and hope all the parts of his cortex, prefrontal and otherwise, start working correctly as soon as possible.

One thing, however, I’ve already learned from middle school – If things go south and his brain never gets any better at operating properly, all hope is not lost. He can always get a job as a city planner.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

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Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Traffic School

You know how when you are driving with your mother-in-law in her car, and it’s your turn to drive, and minutes after you get behind the wheel you’re telling a really funny story and not paying attention to exactly how fast you’re going on the ridiculously straight and deserted downhill stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, so because the fact that it’s not your car and you had no idea how fast it could go without feeling like it was going very fast at all should really be a very compelling reason why the cop should be lenient and just let you off with a warning, and besides, it’s a small car, and small cars always look like they’re going faster than they really are, so that probably totally messes with the accuracy of the laser radar, and also because it was a really funny story and the blue lights and sirens really kind of killed the punchline, which is really punishment enough, don’t you think?

No?

The cop didn’t either.

So there I was, out in the middle of the desert, the proud owner of a yellow citation documenting the fact that my mother-in-law’s car, while more than a few years old, can go slightly faster than the speed of sound.

(By the way, if you happen to be from my insurance company, this story is totally fabricated. All lies. Just for fun. Not that I’m a liar, though. I mean, this is just artistic license. I’ve never lied to you guys about anything, including my annual mileage, or how that very minor house fire got started, and I’ve never even been on Highway 41 near Avenal, CA, and I’ve certainly never had any contact whatsoever with CHP Officer Kennedy, badge number 16452. So, you can probably just stop reading now and go on about your busy day. OK? Great. All my best.)

“Call the number at the bottom of the ticket in about a month,” said the friendly CHP officer.

“A month?”

“Yes, we’re very backed up.”

“Well, I mean, if everything is so backed up, I see no reason why we should clog the system any more with this one?”

“Have a nice day, sir, and drive safe.”

(grumble, grumble) “You too!”

Very backed up, huh? So you’re telling me I’m not the only one who’s been blindsided by this infernal middle of nowhere/downhill/someone else’s car trifecta of bad luck?

Maybe we could spend some of this ticket revenue on a flashing “Watch Your Downhill Speed” warning sign or something.

Or I guess maybe I could learn to watch my own damn downhill speed. Oh, well.

So I called the Kings County Superior Court about a month later. They told me they were still very backed up and I should call them back in three weeks. Three weeks later they told me to call back in two weeks. Wow, does that cop out there ever get a coffee break? Two weeks later they told me to call back in two weeks. (I am not making this up.) Three weeks later my ticket was finally in their system.

Wow, three hundred dollars? That’s great. What a deal. Hang on, let me do some math… You guys should really hire more people to process that backlog of yours, because if my quick calculations are correct, Officer Kennedy out there is making you guys about six thousand dollars an hour.

The good news? My request for Traffic School has been approved!

I sent extra money in to be able to go to traffic school because: “If you do not attend a traffic course and return your Certificate of Completion to the court by the due date listed above, a conviction will be reported to the DMV.”

Now, I couldn’t really care less what the nice folks at the Kings County Superior Court report to the nice folks at the DMV. They can tell them I speed recklessly all over the country. They can tell them I have no regard for the rules of the road or the law in general. They can even tell them I’m a huge Justin Bieber fan. What do I care?

I’ll tell you what I do care about, though. I do care about what the nice folks at the DMV might tell the nice folks at my insurance company.

(And again, if you happen to be one of the nice folks from my insurance company and you’re still reading, please keep in mind that this is all just a big, fun, harmless, made-up story, but again, the fact that I’m making up this tall tale does not in any way mean that I am a serial liar who would ever even entertain the thought of giving you less than one hundred percent of the facts when it comes to our treasured (and, might I add, very much appreciated on this end) insurance relationship.)

So, traffic school it is. I have been given three choices for attending a classroom-based traffic school, but I think in my case it’s really only two choices since one of them is La Academia de Trafico en Espanol. Unfortunately, the two presumably English-based schools are in Hanford, CA and Lemoore, CA. Notwithstanding the fact that both of those cities are actually just 10,000-cow dairy farms with a post office, they are also both a seven-hour round trip from my house. I could probably do it in about five hours or so, but that’s how I got into this predicament in the first place.

(Again, insurance folks, please ignore that last comment.)

Luckily, I have been given the option of completing my traffic school obligation online. Kings County included a handy list of my approved online options. And by a list, what I mean is a legal-size sheet of paper with three columns of website addresses covering the entirety of the front and back, listed in no discernible alpha or numeric order, in what appears to be negative twelve-point font. The font is so small, it just looks like three columns of smudges.

There are at least seven hundred and fifty online companies listed on this single piece of paper. I’m not making that up. I got a magnifying glass and figured out how many companies per inch were listed, then measured the paper.

Just in the upper right corner, in the first half-inch, my magnifying glass shows that my choices include “TooEasyTooFast.com,” “10BuckTrafficSchool.com,” “IPayLessTrafficSchool.com,” “BigMamaTrafficSchool.com,” “ElegantTrafficSchool.com,” “AtomicTrafficSchool.com,” and “5BucksTicket.com.”

What fun-sounding options those are, just in that half-inch. And that’s literally just a half-inch of my choices in literally five and a half feet of list. I am not making that up. I wish I was.

And I have to read and pick from this list, because if I Googled a traffic school that had good recommendations (like that would ever happen), and then tried to make sure it was on this list so it counted, I would still be trying to find it on this completely random list when it was time for my great-grandkids to take away my car keys anyway.

I guess I’ll just pick one. At this point it’s a toss-up between Big Mama and Atomic. I’ll let you know.

If we can’t get a big flashing “SLOW DOWN” sign out on Highway 41, maybe we could spend some of this ticket revenue on larger font. Or maybe alphabetizing.

Just a thought.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

SWITCHEROO

If you have been on a freeway in the last 20 years, I think you’ll agree that we need a better solution to the obvious problem of rush hour traffic congestion. You may be someone who believes that the gasoline automobile is a detriment to the environment in some way, or you may be someone who just really doesn’t like only going 7 MPH on a road that was designed for 70 MPH. You may even be both. Whatever your point of view, I think we can all agree that there are just too many cars on the freeways during commute hours.

It seems pretty obvious at this point that our governments – on a city, state or federal level – have become far too cumbersome to do much of anything worthwhile on a public works basis anymore. I doubt any government entity anywhere could get a 10-foot by 10-foot backyard redwood deck built inside of a year, so simply building us some new or wider freeways to relieve the congestion is probably out of the question.

Fortunately, as with most of life’s little quandaries, I have a plan. It’s called Smidge’s Wonton Interstate Traffic Congestion Household Employee Relocation and Optimization Operation, or SWITCHEROO. And, like almost every other aspect of your life, the IRS can help with this, too. The fact that we must drive to work is not going to go away, so let’s all just severely decrease the amount of miles we need to drive. The IRS already has very detailed records of who goes to work, where they work, and where they live, so the math is almost done already. We simply link up the IRS databases with the new SWITCHEROO algorithm, and let the computer tell us where to go.

Here’s how it will work: The computer will crunch the data and find matched pairs of gainfully employed people. To keep things on a somewhat equal footing, the computer will match men with men and women with women. I’ll explain why in a minute. The algorithm will note that Joe Blow works within one mile of John Smith’s house, and John works within one mile of Joe’s house, but they both live over twenty miles away from their own jobs. Since Joe could be the CEO of a bank, and John could be in charge of the sour cream gun at a Taco Bell, switching jobs doesn’t make any sense. I mean, can you imagine if a bank had someone in charge who was making risky decisions? Unthinkable!

The smart thing to do is to have Joe and John switch houses.

Now, this program is meant to ease freeway congestion, not to cause a nationwide family upheaval, so the families will stay put. Only the workers will move. This is why we have matched men with men and women with women. Joe and John will switch houses, and inherit whatever family situation comes with the house. John may be a lifelong bachelor who suddenly finds himself with a wife and three kids. Joe may instantly become single again after many years of marriage. Who knows what new and exciting home life may await you when you get your SWITCHEROO relocation notice in the mail!

Every attempt will be made to match the switching pair’s ages as well, but there can be no guarantees. It will be quite a challenge just to keep the pairs the same sex, so age may become an issue in some instances. But what is life without fun challenges, right? The twenty-one-year-old single girl from the big city may suddenly find herself as the mother of a nineteen-year-old. If that teenager happens to be a girl, a wonderful friendship could result. If the teenager is male, all we can do is just hope his father has control of the situation.

Suzy, the twenty-something newlywed may suddenly find herself married to Fred, the eighty-something widowed Wal-Mart greeter. In that case, I think we all need to look on the bright side and say, good news for Fred!

Besides the age issue, sexual orientation is simply too complicated a subject to be entered as a parameter in the SWITCHEROO program. Also, as far as I know, the government wouldn’t have any record of this kind of personal data anyway, would they? Probably not. As with all large-scale operations such as this, there will be some unavoidable hiccups. A husband and father of four kids may suddenly find himself living with a gay man. Again, I think it’s best to look upon these unforeseen consequences as fun little challenges. This could be an opportunity for both of them to start dating again, or an opportunity for one of them to discover a whole new lifestyle. Who knows!

Besides the fun new interpersonal relationships that will develop from the program, an unexpected and pleasing change in your financial situation may result as well. Since the IRS has loads of data on your finances, as with the age issue, the SWITCHEROO program will make every effort to match income levels whenever possible. We must not lose sight of the main goal of the program, however, which is traffic elimination. For that reason, the program will optimize the moves based first on commute distance, and then attempt to factor in all the other ancillary issues such as age and tax bracket. Again, I think we need to keep sight of the goal, and take whatever disparities are inadvertently caused in stride.

Your 850-square-foot dark and gloomy apartment might suddenly become a sprawling 8000-square-foot estate house with a full-time maid. On the other hand, your overwhelming $5000 monthly mortgage payment might instantly become a trifling $150/month space fee for your new double-wide at Shady Acres Mobile Estates. It will be important to focus on the positives as we move forward with this invaluable operation.

Speaking of positives, the possibilities are almost limitless for unexpected and interesting changes in the lives of our commuting workforce.

Do you have massive personal debt? It could be wiped away forever.
Hate your neighbors? Get new ones!
Unsuccessful in raising your own kids? Get a fresh start with a new batch.
Only time will tell what powerful and inspiring stories will result from this much needed program.

SWITCHEROO should be a boon for our economy as well, since untold millions of hours will be freed up each day to devote to work instead of driving. No doubt, each and every one of us will use this new found time wisely and in the best interest of our employer, helping spur on a vibrant and flourishing America.

I know what you’re thinking. “It will never work. It will be too messy. I won’t be able to understand the forms.” Not to worry, folks. We have thought of everything. The IRS will handle all the paperwork for you. There won’t be one single form for you to fill out, because you don’t even have to apply for the program. You’re already signed up! All you have to do is report to the address shown on the SWITCHEROO relocation notice that you will be receiving shortly, and you’re done. Your transition to your new life will be seamless, effortless, and a whole lot smoother every morning without all that driving!

Have fun with it, America, and enjoy your new life! I can’t wait to see where I’m going!

See you soon,
-Smidge


Copyright © 2011 Marc Schmatjen


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