Reversed Polarity Route

Chapter 11

He stood in his office looking out the window and at his sector. The latest incident with him crashing a borrowed 18 wheeled vehicle in the produce stand had begun rumors of impeachment. The official had no choice but to call a familiar blue reptilian relative. He dialed the phone on his desk and waited.

“Who’s this?” the voice asked.

“Hey, father.” the official meekly replied.

“Son? You’re really fouling things up!” the official’s father barked.

“Yeah, I know.” the official admitted.

“What’d you do this time, ya little screw up?” his father growled.

“I crashed an 18 wheeler into a produce stand.” the official sighed.

“Wow! You really fouled that up!” his father said disappointedly.

The official didn’t need to be reminded of his failures; He knew he didn’t live up to the expectations of his father and the citizens. When his father was in office, there was no bumbling foolishness or unreasonable disorganization. Back then the sector was incredibly efficient and virtually free of poverty. How could the official live up to those standards? He needed something that would improve his reputation. He ended his call with his father abruptly promising, “For once I will prove you and all the naysayers wrong, for I have a brilliant idea that will save lives!” The official didn’t really have an idea just yet but he knew if he thought hard enough one would come to him.

Lying on his kitchen floor staring at the refrigerator, the official began to smile a murmured, “Magnets! That’s it! It’s ingenious!”

The next morning the official called a press conference. Immediately he began to hear jeers and insults.”Quiet!” the official shouted. “I know rumors have been going around about my accident in the big truck. Well I have an idea that will put an end to all traffic accidents, please listen to my marvelous plan.” The crowd grew skeptical, knowing that everything that the official had to do with turned to manure. But the more the official spoke the more people he began to win over. His plan was based on the polarity of magnets. Opposite poles of a magnet attract and magnets with the same polarity repel. The official announced this edict, “All moving vehicles will have a magnet installed on its left fender and a magnet of the opposite polarity installed on its right fender, when a car is traveling towards another and pass each other a natural magnetic field will be created as both right fenders will have the same polarity and will push each other away.”

The crowd began to mutter, “Maybe he finally has come up with something, and it seems brilliant.” One nuclear physicist began to speak up as to why the idea wouldn’t work but was hauled away for disrupting a press conference. The official was taken upon the shoulders of the inhabitants of the sector to the sounds of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” The official slept like a baby that night. Within a month the magnet plan had been implemented. A ribbon was placed across the main high way as cars lined up to finally drive without fear of crashing. The official was in the first car, a limousine. All the major television outlets were on hand to witness the glorious event. The ribbon was cut and the off sped the official. On cue the official had a cadet come in a sector truck come in the opposite direction to display the intricacies of his plan at work.

As planned the official and the cadet came face to face and the official even tried to swerve into the cadet but to no avail as the magnets repelled and neither vehicle obtained even a scratch. The official wanted to savor the moment and began to slow down to a crawl.

At first the cars behind him thought, “Let him have his day. He finally has come up with a good idea.” Unfortunately, an ambulance came speeding up. Cars pulled over, but not the official. He refused to let anything take his day in the sun. As soon as the ambulance right left fender aligned with the right fender of the limo the flaw in the plan was exposed as the opposite poles of the magnets attracted and both fenders met with such force that they began to careen out of control and like dominos, cars and truck were flipping into each other. Total mayhem had ensued. A major catastrophe had resulted from a scheme to save all from injury and harm. Instead the magnet debacle had caused the biggest day of disaster and carnage that this sector had ever experienced.

The next day the official waited at the scene of the accident. He had hurriedly hired a private investigator to find if there was any other cause for the crashes, which the official couldn’t believe had been his fault. Something other than his brilliant idea was to blame, but what? He just couldn’t take another horrible failure. The private investigator arrived. He seemed rather old and with a stoic personality. He went straight to his work and pulled out various instruments, even an ancient looking magnifying glass. He walked up the road a little bit and leaned over to look at the pavement. Then he put on a glove and brushed two fingers along the ground. The official was very curious at this point.

“What’d you find?” he eagerly queried.

The investigator drew his hand close to his face an examined the substance he had found. He scowled and then looked at the official.

“It’s oatmeal.” he bluntly stated.

The official was elated at this discovery. There was oatmeal on the track; surely this was what caused the cars to crash, and not the magnets. Wanting vindication, the official asked the investigator,

“So it wasn’t my fault?” he asked with a smile.

“No, it was definitely your fault, I just thought it was weird there was oatmeal on the road.” he replied.

Looking dejected, the official’s shoulders slumped as he realized he had been the root cause of the mangled mesh of metal and rubber. Hundreds of law suits were being filed in response to the incident ranging from mental anguish to total dismemberment.

In an instant, the cell phone of the official rang. The official answered his phone and heard the one voice that could possibly console him, his mother. “Mom, how good it is to hear the voice of one who shows unconditional love!”

“You idiot!” she yelled.

The thunderstruck official replied to his mother by saying, “Well… you see…umm…I was thinking about…umm…”

“What are you trying to say!?” she shouted.

The official said, “I don’t know! I just… you know… I lost my words! I forgot what I was going to say…” And then his mother hung up the phone. The official was now angry. He thought that he could at least get a little encouragement from somebody, but he now realized that his dream wasn’t going to come true.

The official went back to his bunker vowing never to come out and show his face. He became recluse and feared for his safety. The official wondered if even his old childhood school buddies still considered him part of the “in” crowd.

“You didn’t have any school buddies, dork!” yelled a big muscular man with a pasty complexion, messy brown hair, and a jean jacket with the sleeves torn off. It was the bad-mannered bully the official knew from his school days. He walked behind the official and gave him an old fashion wedgie, and then gave him a noogie for good measure.

“Enjoy your wedgie and noogie, buddy.” the bully grinned.

“Yeah, whatever.” the official frowned.

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