Appeasing the Traffic Gods

Okay, so a couple weeks ago, as I was coming home from taking my friend Fred home from a game, I got pulled over for speeding. It was over pretty quickly, and I drove home with an $85 ticket. It's a fair cop, and I suppose I deserved it. I do occasionally breach the speed limit, although I've become a bit more careful since I became a dad. I rarely get pulled over, and assumed this was the standard karmic payback I get every couple years for having a foot with 10% more Lead content than the average driver.

Sunday night, I was driving home from work (I work at Kennedy Space center, and live 20 miles to the south), and found SR3, the route I normally take, was closed at the south guard gate. I took 405 west to US1 and continued my way from Titusville, south toward Cocoa. As I got my ticket a few miles north of where I got onto US1, I made sure to keep my speed at around 55mph. It was about midnight, and the road was pretty clear.

Or so I thought. You guessed it: familiar red-and-blue lights started flashing behind me. I pulled off the road, muttering "Crap. Crap. Crap!"

I rolled down my window as the cop walked up. "Evening, officer. Is there a problem?"

"You were speeding, sir. Can I see your license and registration?"

I handed them out to him. "I thought the speed limit here was 55."

"Along this stretch of road, it is. But back by Faye Blvd, it's 45. That's where I clocked you going 54." He started back to his car, then turned back. "Have you recieved another ticket recently?"

I nodded. "Yeah, a couple weeks ago, up in Titusville." He nodded, then continued back to his cruiser. I sat there is my car, feeling embarrassed and stupid.

Then I did the praying version of "sending out a feeler." I asked silently to the universe, "Who do I have to appease to get let off with a warning?" I shrugged a little, "'Cause anything I need to do, (within reason!)," I added, knowing whatever hears these things will gladly take all it can get, "and I'll do it. Just let me know."

I sat there for several more minutes before the officer got out of his cruiser and came back to my window. He handed back my paperwork and said, "Sir, I'm going to let you go with a written warning..."

I blew out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and said, "Bless you!" He had me sign a form acknowledging why I had been pulled over, to which he added a note that it would have been a $158 ticket. I headed home, and said to the universe, "Okay, what do I need to do?"

I received no answer. So, I resolved to research the question in the occult library that I and my wife have amassed over the years, especially a book call Urban Primitive. But I keep forgetting to sit down and actually do the research (I'm at work as I write this).

This morning, Puck sat down beside me and said he'd had a dream. From what he got from the dream, he figured it was important to deliver this message: "Don't be an oathbreaker." He didn't know what it means, just that it was important he deliver it.

You know, it wasn't until I was behind the wheel again that the message clicked. Unfortunately, I am at work, so I can't look up anything (the Google searches I tried were less than satisfying...). So, I figured I would detail Traffic, as a diety/ power/ anthropomorphic personification.

Traffic is a very ordered entity. He exists to make sure everything is going where it needs to go, but also that things arrive when they need to arrive. He holds dominion over pathways that pass more than one thing at a time: roadways, networks, bureaucratic grapevines and post offices. But a true place of power for Traffic is the airport terminal, because it is a nexus of at least three forms of traffic: cars parking and leaving, planes flying in and taking off, and people within the terminal itself, moving from place to place, with the terminal itself almost never being the destination, merely the medium in which the travelers move, between other modes of transit. Pure traffic.

You ask Traffic for help to get things speedily to their destination. When he smiles on you, lights at intersections are green as you pass through so you don't have to break stride, mail sent via ground somehow makes it across the country the next day, things like that.

Traffic is both very easy and very hard to get along with. All he asks for is patience, courtesy, and that you follow the rules of movement in the medium he is being invoked in. When tempers flare, he looks away. When many people show anger and discourtesy in a short period of time, especially if they try to ignore or bypass the rules, then Traffic may storm off in a huff. This is where gridlock comes from.

So, I suppose I should show proper courtesy to Traffic. Sending a message to him in another domain where he holds sway seems appropriate. So:

Thank you, Traffic, for sparing me from another ticket. I'll try to pay attention to the rules of the road from now on.