| March 11, 2001.
I hate infrastructure. I know this statement makes no sense at all, but the world is out to get me. Maybe this is a slightly harsh thing to say, but I know at least that the public roads are out to get me. Tonight, I'm driving home from Stonebriar Mall. It is on Texas State Highway 121 between the Dallas North Tollway and SH 289. I turn left out the south exit of the mall and head east toward's Independence Parkway, where I turn south to head home. In that short 2 mile stretch of road, I encounter four traffic lights - Only two of those lights indicate intersections with roads that have even the slightest redeeming qualities. The other two are on mostly residential streets which don't deserve lighted intersections, except in the two brief period of time each day when SH 121 is too congested for even the slightest traffic to merge. I was driving home at 1:00 in the morning. In the middle of the night. Why weren't the lights just those friendly flashing yellow lights? Anyway, in that 2 mile stretch, I managed to catch EVERY one of the four lights. So, I turn right on Independence and begin the 8 mile final stretch home. I hit a stop sign at some dinky intersection in the far north reaches of town. This does not bother me. Stop signs are just. They are indiscriminate. They are out to get everybody. This is, however, the end of my complacency. I hit the light at Hedgecoxe. I wait about 30 seconds for the light to turn green, and count all zero cars cross Independence in that time period. I proceed onto Legacy, where the light is again red. Slightly longer, I wait the better part of a minute again. At least this time, a car was in near enough proximity to take advantage of the green light he was provided with. The light turns green, I go - a slight bit more peeved than before. The next light is one of those dinky residential type lights. The street is so insignificant that, despite my having lived here for all of my 20 years, I couldn't for the life of me tell you the name of the road. The only reason it has a traffic light at all is because it's in an affluent part of town, and we all know that the wealthy are more deserving of such amenities as traffic lights than the impoverished. Not only is the light not blinking yellow, but I hit a red - again. The light lasts forever. There is absolutely no cross-traffic seen in 5 minutes time, so I decide to make the ever so foolish move of creeping across the intersection on a red light. Silly me, there WAS a car in the area. Red and blue lights start flashing everywhere. A police car. He doesn't ticket me, for he is truly a merciful man, and informs me that the light is indeed broken, but he does warn me that regardless, it is illegal, that I should have turned right and detoured. Spring Creek. Okay. Spring Creek is by definition a divided highway. This means that there are two traffic lights, one on each side of the wide inner median. I hit the first light, GREEN! 20 yards later, right before my eyes, another police officer with sirens wailing crosses Independence. The light turns red. Not the short-term red light of the off-hours traffic, but the long, unrelenting red light of the rush-hour madness never seen at this hour of the night. I'm beginning to get angry. I take a deep breath and sigh. The next road is Parker road. I thank my lucky stars, and still I don't understand, but I hit a green light. Proceed. Park Boulevard - Plano Senior HS, the former largest HS in the state of Texas sits at the intersection of Independence and Park. It would normally seem funny, that angst in the form of a persistent red light would happen so close to a place where four years of such angst was the norm, but tonight is an exception. I am livid. The last light I see is at 15th street. I catch it turning red on me, and scoot on through, barely getting through before the yellow gave way to red.
This was an hour ago, I have just now calmed down enough to write this. Traffic is out to get me, though. Don't you ever feel that way sometimes? | 
