Comic Fiction: Orange Cone Crosses Road, Local Drivers Remain Committed to Ignoring Everything

A LaughParty comic take.

Note: This is a work of comic fiction and not a news report. All people, places, and cones are invented for fun.

In the made-up town of Pumpkinford Heights, Officer Dale Winklebottom had a bold idea: if drivers wouldn't respect a crosswalk sign, maybe they'd respect a giant orange cone with legs.

He had a plan. He'd put on a foam cone costume, stroll across the street with great dignity, and watch the traffic politely stop. It was a flawless plan, as long as nobody knew anything about traffic.

At 8:15 a.m., Winklebottom stepped off the curb in a costume made of nine pounds of orange foam and a hat shaped like a dunce cap for roads. He moved with the slow, steady confidence of a man who believes in the power of visual metaphor.

The first driver, in a minivan packed with soccer gear, looked directly at him and drove on. The second was busy having a very serious conversation with a breakfast burrito. The third gave him a friendly wave, which sounds like progress but was not the same as stopping.

“I think they see me,” Winklebottom whispered to his partner, a sensible clipboard. “They just don't think I'm in charge of anything.”

That was a fair point. Cones have never been in charge of anything. They sit around all day, quietly telling people where not to go, and people respond by driving next to them at 60 miles per hour. Winklebottom had accidentally joined the most ignored profession in America.

By 8:40, the situation had become a social experiment. One car slowed down, and Winklebottom's heart swelled with hope. Then the driver leaned out the window and asked, “Hey, is this lane closed?” which is the kind of question that makes a cone question its whole life.

Another driver honked, not in anger but in what sounded like encouragement, the way you'd cheer on a toddler in a talent show.

Eventually a retired crossing guard named Mabel (fictional, but she'd be excellent) marched into the street holding a stop sign the size of a pizza box. Every car halted instantly. Mabel looked at Winklebottom, then at the traffic, then at the sky, as if asking the universe for patience.

“Dale,” she said, “people don't stop for costumes. They stop for confidence and a very large sign.”

Winklebottom nodded, adjusting his cone-top, which had slipped over one eye. He had learned an important lesson that day, mostly that foam is not breathable.

The next morning, he returned in his regular uniform and stood at the crosswalk holding a sign. Traffic stopped. A driver even smiled at him.

The cone costume now lives in the station closet, where it enjoys a quiet retirement. Occasionally someone puts a hat on it, and everyone agrees it's the most respected member of the team.

Inspired by CA deputy dressed as a traffic cone and crossed the street. Drivers still didn’t stop.