Red & Orange: A Traffic Cone Love Story

 I was brought up in a home where we anthropomorphised just about everything…because it was funny, enough of your questions! So I have a habit of seeing objects that are a bit rusted, or have a dent or have wilted, or bowed or have been abused by humanity, and I end up feeling sorry for them. Although sometimes instead of feeling sorry for them, I’ll make up a story about them, wherein the object is the protagonist. Sometimes by the end of the story they are better off, and sometimes they turn out to be the villain of the piece, and sometimes, by the end of the story, they can end up being as lonely and dejected as I had imagined they were in the first place (which is why I own four broken egg beaters, half a bike and an old metal tea pot with a dent in it).

Red & Orange

The Story of How Two Lonely Traffic Cones Fell in Love

As I was enduring my eight kilometre walk today (I know 8 kilometres! But some mug asked me to marry him and now I have to get skinny)…where was I… Oh right… as I was enduring my walk and wondering about the world, specifically wondering  how famous writers get famous, and how famous writers get published, and how famous writers actually get around to writing stuff, I came across a couple of traffic cones. The first traffic cone was red, it was old, its red plastic body was chipped in places but generally it was in good shape. The red cone wasn’t severely bent like most old traffic cones (the fact that they age so similarly to old men seems to encourage anthropomorphisation), I actually felt like he was in really good shape, until I came across the next cone about three metres later.

She was gorgeous, as far as traffic cones go. She was in perfect shape, not a chip or dent to be seen. She was new (ish), you could tell because she was orange and had a reasonably unscathed reflector panel across her middle, and she had a heavy black rubber base so she wouldn’t blow over in a breeze. She clearly wasn’t like those snooty sidewalk traffic cones you see without a scratch on them or a speck of mud. She had mud splashed all around the black rubber base, you could tell that she wasn’t the type to shirk from hard work, but she was in such good shape, you had to admire her for retaining her femininity in such a male-dominant work environment.

Anyway seeing Orange, I was surprised because having noticed Red initially I had expected the cones to be uniform, but they were completely different. I stopped (having made all of the above observations in just a few strides… okay it was the home stretch of the walk so the strides were pretty slow by then) and turned to look back on the two cones. I realised very quickly that Red was pining for Orange, trust me as an independent observer I am absolutely correct, and if you had been there you would have seen it too.

Red was situated mere metres from Orange, how devastating, how heart-wrenching to be so often near your beloved, and unable to touch her, or even talk to her (I have it on good authority that traffic cones speak in such low tones that they have to be right next to each other to have any conversation… otherwise humans would hear them… they’re a very suspicious and shifty group of individuals).

I deduced pretty swiftly that Red had never expressed his love to Orange. At the same time though I wasn’t entirely certain Orange would respond positively to Red, what with her being the only lady-cone in a work place full of rowdy male-cones. I quickly reassured myself with the knowledge that Red would be so polite and gentlemanly, yet strong and rugged, that he would be able to woo Orange without expecting her to compromise her strong individuality, or sacrifice her long term career goals.

I came to admire those traffic cones so much and I was so moved by their plight of unfulfilled love and romance that I thought, nay I felt deep within my soul, that I needed to do something about it. I strode over and picked up Orange by the top part and closed the three metre gap to Red and placed her down next to him and said “Red this is Orange, Orange meet Red. I hope you cherish each other forever.”

And the lived happily ever after.

Meanwhile a large navy blue sedan had driven through the driveway that Orange had previously been blocking and ended up in a very deep sand pit, that was being prepared for its future as a housing development.

The man in the car was very unhappy indeed.