Beam me up, CDOT
John Rhoades - 07/06/2017CDOT is run by aliens. No. I’m serious. Cast down from the stars and stranded upon our lonesome terra, a species of hyper-insidious beings have arrived to probe our cars in the most mysterious and obscene of methods. As the annual round of summer road maintenance seizes us in its vicious clutches and we wait for the sometimes-senseless changing of our roads, just remember the truth is out there. And it’s extraterrestrial.
After failing to take over the world through car wash attendants and elementary school librarians, the aliens turned to traffic manipulation. Watching the fallibility of humanity, they realized that the true rulers of the world were the automobiles. With the ways we splurge on car maintenance and the devotion we show them at the cost of our own health and longevity, it was clear that cars were the true overlords. Thus the aliens devoted their intentions to creating probes through bizarre traffic projects and safety tests. The locus being here in Southwestern Colorado.
You may ask, where did these aliens come from? A decent question, with a very clear, real and indisputable answer. In 1948, a UFO crashed in the desert outside of Aztec. This is fairly understandable. Due to the increased use of peyote, or perhaps due to the lack of institutionalized education, New Mexico got blasted up by little green dudes throughout the 20th century. But this crash in particular is of interest, because found in the wreckage we’re 16 little bodies. Spirited away by federal lawdudes, the aliens disappeared from the public eye. Yet, they weren’t dead, and they certainly weren’t finished with their sinister starry agenda.
Of course their path into CDOT is the real problem here. I have spent the last two decades of my 21-year existence trying to figure out how they got there. After analyzing hours of actress Anne Heche rambling incoherently, I have deduced what happened to the Aztec aliens. Once the government realized the aliens offered no significant means to defeat Communism, they cut them loose. Rather than risk inciting an intergalactic incident, and not having the materials to blast them home, the government gainfully employed them. Unfortunately, since the vampires already worked the DMV, the only options left were CDOT or Hollywood – and Hollywood already had way too many aliens. Thus the terra firma interlopers took over CDOT and began their torturous manipulation of our daily commute.
Just consider the Bridge to Nowhere. The impact of its clusterduckery could only be at the hands of an interstellar intelligence with an innate sense for nonsense. But that pales in comparison to the true celestial tomfoolery of the U.S. 550/160 intersection. The brain of homosapien is one that has developed over millennia, it is a slave to the rules and laws that it adapted to in order to survive. One of these great adaptations was good ol’ common sense. Something the 550/160 intersection is noticeably without. I mean why the cluck would you make a bunch of cars move across oncoming traffic to make a pre-turn for an intersection they may not even know is arriving?
Making sure I wasn’t totally insane, I checked with others. One human and possible lizard-person responded, “I don’t know who would ever design such a thing. I avoid that intersection if I can and scream at the top of my lungs if I can’t.” While another earth dweller simply responded, “I once stood in Times Square during a furry festival and that made more sense than this intersection.”
Of course I needed a better source to get a fuller picture. Thus, I called up the aliens’ contact here on earth, Tom Cruise. While known for his commitment to scientology, Cruise is better known in other circles by his devotion and belief in the alien-traffic-probe-earth-destruction-plot. When reached for contact, he spoke quickly, “HAHAHAHAH! It’s all over, they’ve figured out the secrets of Continuous Flow Traffic. Prepare for the end of days!” The following day, I received a brochure for Scientology. It was only strange because it appeared in my bowl of cereal after descending in a blue tractor beam.
The utter insanity of these alien-inspired traffic projects has driven some close to mental collapse. Certainly a correlation for an admiration of Trump around areas rampant with traffic projects was noted by the watchdog group Dirt People for a Trafficless Tomorrow. Of course that is not to suggest Trump is an alien, he’s human, if only just. That was our mistake, and we gotta own it.
But rather, it suggests that the alien powers of traffic manipulation have driven us so past the edge of sanity that we became convinced that a cauliflower with a cheeto hat should become president. It’s a scary time to be alive.
Going forward, I can give little advice. It seems like the aliens are here to stay. So as you find yourself stuck in the orange cone construction traps springing up around town, play it cool. Drive slow, keep your eyes peeled for shifty 3- foot-tall green creatures, and never betray your knowledge of their agenda. How do you think Leonard Cohen died? But if you really want to stick it to the galactic invaders, ride a bike. Or walk. They win when we drive through their silly traffic study spots. Don’t go softly into that green light, rather reclaim our globe by renouncing our ties to the automotive industry, only then can we win.
Or you can just learn how to follow traffic signals, that works too.
John Rhoades is an Animas High School graduate now studying at NYU-Shanghai. He is slumming for the summer as a Telegraph intern. Unless it’s all an alien plot.
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