Self-selected Traffic Controllers

Kentucky seems to have quite a few traffic controllers. And they all cruise around in normal looking vehicles, making sure that none of us have fun on the interstate. I saw someone doing this behind me today as I was merging onto I-64. If it was done in front of me, I might have gone around him just to show that he was daft. Fortunately, I wasn't tempted. But I have in the past (note to self: continue work on anger issues). So this isn't the first time I've seen this, but it stuns me every time.

The scenario works like this: traffic is backing up, especially around merges (I could ramble long and hard on the average Kentucky driver's destructive approach to merging). Some of us think that stopping in the right lane just because someone thought they should merge NOW into completely blocked traffic, instead of rolling forward until there was an opening, is a bad idea. So when that person has their car half into the left lane, we go around them, and find the nice open gaps they created for us. And discover that in front of them, traffic is moving just fine thank-you-very-much.

To sum up: some cars merge immediately, some cars merge later. And therein lays the frustration for the Self-selected Traffic Controller (STC), for he/she (though really, probably a he) cannot stand that some people are "cheating" by no merging immediately, but instead have the audacity to use the other 1500 feet of lane and fine a merge point later on. So what does he do? The STC executes a partial merge, and straddles the lane line. This way he has "merged" obediently, but also prevents others from going around him. If someone should attempt to go around him by using the shoulder, perhaps because they thought he was just really slow to move over and didn't want to wait, the STC may decide to actually remain in the right lane. This however doesn't lose his merge position, because the people in the left lane behind him don't move forward since he has already proven that 1) he is merging 2) he's a dangerous idiot.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I will assume that STC's do this not only because they are idiots, or jerks, or... OK, benefit of the doubt: they do it because they think it will help traffic move faster. They believe that if we all merged right away and used only one lane (instead of two), it would be faster. Clearly they know little of volume flow, but I must grant that there are plenty of people who race up, then slam their brake, and back everything up on a merge (note previous comment on destructive merging habits). But what I've noticed is that STC's end up driving slower, because they have to dedicate so much attention to watching their review-mirror to make sure they can block the people trying to drive the speed-limit and not 20 miles under it. So instead of making things move faster, things move slower.

I love leaving STC's in my dust.

Poetry?

Synthetics carefully wrap my feet,
To protect them,
To help them,
To let me move with comfort and sureness.
I set forth, trusting my cozy shoes to keep my feet safe
As I pound the pavement in search of fitness.

Lungs are on fire.
Shins are screaming.
Muscles would be stiff if they could be.

Walking at last
The Synthetic is removed
And bare feet touch hard ground.

Unyielding concrete scratches,
Pebbles wound,
Stiff muscles make short steps.

The fire leaves my lungs.
My shins begin to prefer speech over screams.
My feet are unprotected, unsafe, shoe-less,
But happy.

Happy feet are bare.

Change is Coming!

The Bucket List

Today in CPE we watched and discussed the movie "The Bucket List." Pretty decent movie about facing death, and some of the hospital experience. In discussing it, our supervisor asked if we had a bucket list. I didn't really think I did, but realize there are some things I would like to do before I kick the bucket.

1) Visit six of the seven continents (the ones that are really populated) for at least a few days if not a total of a week or more. (So far: 3 out of 6)

2) Be in all 50 USA states, even if only driving through them though I would like to make a stop in each (Can't remember how many I've been in so far)

3) Do a multi-day hike to traverse a major park or trail (like the Sheltowee Trace trail)

4) Publish a book

5) The movie mentioned two questions that Ancient Egyptians believed they would be asked before entering heaven: Have you experienced joy in life? Has your life brought joy to others? I would certainly like to easily answer both of those in the affirmative before I die. Not just, did I experience a singular moment, or grant one moment of joy, but overall.

6) Drive a (race) car at ridiculous speeds (on a track).

So far that's what I've come up with.

The Things People Say

I'm reading a book on infertility (When Empty Arms Become A Heavy Burden, Glahn and Cutrer, 1997), and one of the chapters is about what to do when people say the wrong thing. To break the ice, it lists some of the "favorite" comments that the authors and others have heard, often along with either an interpretation of why the comment hurts, or what they wish they could say back. I haven't heard too many of these personally, though I think Luta might have. But I've gotten to the point where reading them is funny, even though if I were to hear them it would hurt.

The chapter broke the sayings into groups. Here are those from the "Miscarriage" category:

"You know it's for the best."

"The baby was probably deformed--this is nature's way of taking care of it."

* "You're young." *

"You can always have another."

* "At least you know you can get pregnant." *

"At least you never knew the baby. It would have been harder if it were five..."

What really made me laugh? When we first decided we needed to start seeing medical people about infertility, since it had been a year since we saw a doctor about our miscarriages, the nurse we saw said one of them verbatim. And she might have said another, and said some other things not on this list which were equally unhelpful, like "A year is just an average. It takes some people longer". Hers are marked with a *. Which is one of the reasons we aren't going back to that medical group anymore...

I Don't Get It

EMS brought another dead body to the hospital tonight. That's two in a week that I know of.

Someone finds a loved one in the house. They call 911: good idea! 911 sends an ambulance: good idea! The ambulance arrives to find that the person is without pulse, has been so for 10 or more minutes, and is gray, so they begin CPR, plug them full of meds, and zap them. Then EMS loads the person into the ambulance and races off, even though there has been no response: Um, waste of time idea? Then EMS arrives at the hospital, unloads the dead body (while still doing CPR and cramming every medication imaginable into it), and our ER staff calls a Code Blue and goes to work: Wait, I'm lost.

At this point they've been dead a half hour. Or more. What, exactly, are we trying to accomplish here? If God wanted this person revived, the ER staff is no better at performing miracles than the EMS were. That's up to God. So why exactly is one of the nurses standing over the body doing chest compressions? We knew they were dead on arrival...

Pointless Questions

I wondered tonight how many of the questions I ask people are pointless. As a chaplain, I have found that many of my questions seem to be pointless. The reasons may vary, but tonight I concluded that many questions I ask, to give myself some idea of what the situation may be, are pointless because people give me answers that are not true.

I'm not saying people lie to me, though of course that happens too. Tonight, I asked a family a question I often ask: is there anyone else coming in, any other family or friends? I think I've seen other people ask this too, including nurses and doctors. I do it so I can get an idea of what to expect: are you the only decision maker? Is your schedule the only one that matters? Are we waiting for someone to come before we contact the morgue or "withdraw care?"

So I asked: Is there any other family coming in? The response: No, we're it. We told the grandkids not to come up, and the in-laws can help us tomorrow. Then, 20 minutes later, another child of the patient shows up. With his wife. That would be, yes, two people, not none, who came later. Understandable then why I would give the nurse a confused look when she was about to usher them into an occupied waiting room, and why the son was confused as to why I was confused.

So why bother asking, I ask myself? Another pointless question, because I'll ask again next time, too.