#77 Idiot Sticks

There’s lots of extra things poking up out of the ground lately. Idiot Sticks, I call them. They seem to help some of us in various ways, oftentimes for our own good, even if we persist in insisting on our stupidity. Like the flat yellow posts sticking up all over, I guess identifying all our gas lines. What’s that all about? Do you really mean to tell me there isn’t a database somewhere that tells us where we have potentially explosive gas lines, that includes a detailed drawing that plots them out to the last gnat’s derriere? Do we really need to stick four-feet tall, six-inch wide, bright yellow pieces of plastic all over the landscape? And really, post 9-11 like we are, wouldn’t it be better, not only to skip the plastic markers, but have that map locked up in a secure place? I would figure Terrorist 101 would be the last course any virgins-in-heaven-seeking suicide-teenager would have to take if blowing up gas pipes was in the homework. “Oh ho, these stupid Americans, they make it so easy for us. Let us across the border if we’re not Mexican and then show us where all the gas pipes are just so they can make digging a little easier for their construction people. Allah, ya gotta love it.
And what’s with all these barrels on the front edges of jersey barriers? They recently finished a new stretch of freeway near me. And they trucked in all these nearly grown tress and bushes and flowers and bark and stuff. A good bunch of money went down on landscaping. Pretty beautiful actually, and not cheap. Then they arrange a half dozen ugly yellow barrels in front of the jersey barriers at the off ramp. Wouldn’t want some idiot to t-bone himself cause he’s trying to cut in front of someone and whip into the off ramp too late. Oh no. This is the age of anti-Darwinism. We gotta save these poor bastards from themselves.
Like at the railroad crossings: The prime example of idiot sticks. How far we’ve come. Used to be blinking red lights. Then they got the gates that swung down when a train is coming. Not good enough. Some idiots would cut into the opposite lane, wind through the gap in the gates on either side of the track, swing into the wrong lane briefly on the other side and shoot off, reveling in their dance with death. So now, for about a hundred feet on either side of the tracks, the center of the roadway has a bunch of these three-foot unsightly plastic sticks sticking up, the threat of plastic apparently meant to discourage the yahoos from their feats of daring-do, as they play chicken with the iron horse. The funny thing is, half the plastic sticks are bent or busted. Don’t suppose some four-wheel-drive, high-suspension, monster mudding truck had anything to do with it? Seems like lots of those trucks have little emblems on the back with a big fish eating a smaller fish. The smaller fish says Darwin on it. I guess Darwin was wrong. In humans at least. Cause idiots almost never get killed before they’ve had a chance to reproduce.
America, ya gotta love it.