No War for Cake

I'm frustrated with the job market so I walked to the store and bought myself a carrot cake to feel better. At the cross-road, that mad house of an intersection where Lakeway meets Holly, waiting for the crossing signal, I was marooned. To my dismay there were other people on the corner with me though they weren't waiting to cross the street. They did have a giant sign that required three men to hold which read, "IMPEACH THE WHOLE ADMINISTRATION". Other signs read, "BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER", "BUSH IS A PUPPET" and "HONK FOR IMPEACHMENT".

Drivers were honking and waving.

Not wanting to be mistaken for part of the demonstration, I stood quietly, focusing my thought on the red light. Maybe I could use the force to change the red light to green putting myself closer to the task I'd created for myself: inhaling sugary baked goods.

Traffic is unending. The city empties in the morning and then fills again in the evening. Suburu Outbacks, Land Rovers, Toyota 4runners--vehicles made for north westerners. Tools to take REI shoppers high into the Cascades, into the mud and snow where they can pitch their gortex tents and before nodding off, do a bit of office work on their laptop computers. I ponder, why are cars made for urban combat and the back country necessary when driving the best paved roads in the world?

I see another sign held by a retired gentleman that reads, "OIL WAR".

What do these people want? We live a complex world. Unfortunately people demand cheap goods, big homes, bullet proof cars, fast food, carrot cake on demand. It takes roads, rails, and sea ways to bring us these things. When our goods are threatened, we go to war to secure them. It has always been like that, yes even B.W. (Before Dubbya). Every time someone makes a comment about the dieing children in Iraq or the young soldiers dieing at the hands of Bush the imbecile and Cheney, Satan incarnate, I wonder if they aren't legally retarded. Do they really have that poor of an understanding of how reality works?

I pretend to be a wizard sometimes. I also wish there was world peace and that we could all lay in a field with docile lions and smoke weed all day. (I don't say that mockingly. I really do wish that.) Though I'd love to be a lion tamer in a world covered by rain forests, I also know that we have to work towards that vision. I work towards it by eating; others as members of congress, as teachers and inventors, builders and doctors.

Maybe Bush has done something wrong. I don't know. The signs didn't say anything about it--only that everyone should be fired.

Then what?

The signal flashed a light picture of a man walking and so I started walking. Half way through the intersection the signal started a countdown of how much time I could expect to live if I stayed in the intersection. Four...Three...Two...One. I just stepped onto the adjacent curb when another line of cars roared by me, honking and waving.