To the lady in the Oldsmobile with the Mary Kay sign in the back

My apologies for being close on your tail this morning. I was headed to work and wanted to make it there close to on time. I typically take city streets, as you do, to avoid the traffic on 35W, and then pick up I-94 later on.

The challenge with going 20 mph in city streets, as you were this morning, is that the lights are timed so that if you go the speed limit, which is 30 mph by the way, you will hit every light green once you hit one light green. It's pretty neat that the city set things up that way. As a matter of fact, you can even go as fast as 32 mph and will still hit every light green.

But, when you are stuck behind someone going 20 mph as I was this morning, you tend to hit every light red. And with the number of lights between 36th Street and Portland, this meant that 10 minutes were added on to my commute today because I was stuck behind you.

I don't know if you knew this, but if you are coming up to a green light and you see that the pedestrian signs are blinking red, that means that the light is about to turn yellow. It's a neat little trick. As a matter of fact, sometimes you're even given an idea as to how soon the light will turn yellow when the pedestrian sign looks like this:

See, that little number counts down the number of seconds until you can no longer begin crossing and the light turns yellow. Isn't technology amazing?!

So if you see one of those, you might want to speed it up just a little bit, maybe to say, 25 mph, to make the light. But if you choose instead to continue on at your 20 mph speed, you are guaranteed that it will turn yellow on you and on the person stuck behind you, and once again you'll be sitting at a red.

Which is why I unintentionally tried to speed you up by riding your tail. I didn't mean to, it's just that I wished I'd been in your place and could have made you go just a titch faster so I could get to work on time. No matter, I lost you at one of those lovely red lights when you were able to sneak through at your snail's pace and I was still stuck at the red. So I hung out for a while and lost you, then made up my time on I-94.

Thanks for the lesson in patience.