Signs

I have a fondness for roadside signs. Or they do for me. Or something. Whatever the nature of our romance, the signs and their contents tend to synchronize with my thoughts (or to music, or conversation, or other signs), as to reflect these things in conspicuous ways, coinciding as if cued. (Yes, these incidents are, really, synchronicities. Sarcasm is an addiction.)

Today, for example: as I was driving down the road with the radio playing, Quiet Riot encouraged me to "get wild!" -- right as I passed a big digital sign, precisely as it cycled to an ad that read "GET WILD!" It made me shake my head and blink, like a cartoon character who'd just been socked in the face (which I kind of was).

But there's more to this -- far more. Besides the fact that even the best Broadway choreographer couldn't possibly have timed such a logistically complex coinciding of real-world events (and, the fact that today's sign-synchro wasn't the first time such a "coincidence" had occurred, nor the tenth, or the thirtieth), there are details that further substantiate this incident, devil-style.

First, my having the radio on at all. Upon getting into my truck, soupy and tired after a morning-long medical treatment, I hadn't much felt like listening to music. So, naturally, I made to turn off the radio -- but didn't, being Compelled to leave it on, as if the world might end were I to click off the classic-rock station streaming into my truck. (Another common thread in these incidents, my mysterious Compelling's and Noticing's and Just Happened To's, without which no synchronicity would've taken place.)

Second, my being on that road with the sign that was so enamored with me, or any road for that matter. Also thanks to my medically induced stupor, I'd felt like stopping off at the nearest parking lot and reading the book I'd brought. In fact, I'd had every intention of doing just this (as was my habit in regards to these weekly treatments, to park and read and eat a packed lunch afterward, to rest and regroup) -- except, just like with the radio, I was Compelled to drive thirty minutes to a certain coffee shop, then park there for my dining and reading, against all logic (or any real reason at all). The world would've ended had I not done this, also, so off I went.

Yes, I did leave my radio on, and I did make the drive to the coffee shop -- soupy and overtreated and not looking at all handsome, but I was there. And so I received that eighties-sounding encouragement to get wild, and I was on the road so that I could pass that sign, and I arrived just within that infinitesimal little window of the sign's cycling so that it could echo the radio lyric as if on a switch (and do so in big, red, screaming letters, perfectly reflective of the singer's tone).

I laughed, of course -- and, also, I felt quite loved. The signs were still fond of me, after all.