Today I Dragged A Traffic Cone for Miles

No, seriously.

In front of our apartment, where we all park, there was a mysterious traffic cone. It blocked approximately 1/2 of a parking space, was the only traffic cone within sight, and had no apparent function.

Now, after a few days of this, I just accepted it's presence. Like a suddenly grown third arm, it's existence was strange for only a time before I started bringing scissors with me to cut a third hole before trying on clothes. Interestingly, it also seemed like no one wanted to remove it, despite the fact that it took up valuable parking space. It looked like an official sort of cone. What if it was there for a reason??

Enter the present, this morning, with twenty degree weather and four fresh inches of snow on the ground. I sigh upon seeing this, as the crucial five minutes required to wipe off the snow on my car will ruin my carefully timed departure. Knowing this, I wipe only the front and back window and take off like a giant, motorized snowball, determined to keep to my schedule. I have the route from my apartment to school mapped so precisely, it's nothing short of scientific, and I hate to have my fine instrumentation ruined by unexpected variables.

All this is quite important to note, as it explains what happens next. Driving along the familiar roads, I notice a scraping noise that intermittently sounds from beneath my car. For the first few minutes, I figure it is just some residual ice breaking off from the bottom. After a while, I start to get suspicious. I notice people reacting somewhat strangely as I pass them. And the noise isn't stopping as it should if it were just ice.

Finally, just as I am thinking I should stop and see what in the world is going on down there, a car pulls alongside me. At first, I am annoyed, because I am trying to change lanes in order to pull over and he is blocking me. Eventually I look at the driver, and see that the man is gesturing to the undercarriage of my car and saying something. I give him the "yeah, i'm on it" expression, and we arrive at a stop light. He pulls alongside me, rolls down his window, and, in a near impenetrable accent, says something like "You have a crone under your car! A crone!"

I have an old, cranky lady under my car?? No, clearly not. Let me pull over and end this silly affair once and for all! Wait a minute. Is that...the cone from outside our apartment?? Oh my. I DID park behind it last night and, when the snow fall obscured it, I simply drove forward over it. I then proceeded to drive with it trapped beneath my car (kind of remarkable, really) for over a mile.

It is still there on Howard street, at the corner of McCormic Blvd. I saw it on the way back, and felt a twang of guilt/pity.

Also, I felt a certain satisfaction. Too many cones without purpose get away with their crimes. This one didn't. This one experienced vigilante justice in the realist way possible: by being dragged by a car for miles.