Why Go to Manhattan . . .

Yep, flying to New York City is costly. Staying in a hotel in downtown Manhattan remains prohibitively expensive. You’ll need to take out a second mortgage just to scrape up the funds. And Manhattan hotels don’t let its guests park their cars for free. No, no, no. Your nest egg just got a wee bit smaller.

Try Poway, California!

It’s right here. I mean it’s just outside my window. Rooms here are reasonable. You can park everywhere for free. Woo hoo!

AND

You get the same backed-up traffic as Manhattan.

You might be asking how does Poway, a town 1/200th the size of New York, manage to get the Big Apple’s traffic. Simple.

1)  Have really long red lights. Quite a lot of cars can accumulate during red lights that last four minutes.

2) Make people wait even longer than that for left turns.

3) Favor cars going a certain direction. In Poway the favored motorists are the ones going east-west. These directions have most of the businesses.

4) This means, of course, cars traveling north-south have significantly longer red lights. Quite a few cars going north-south accumulate at the intersection at this time. A favorite sports of these dammed-up drivers is counting the number of times they could have easily crossed during gaps occurring in east-west traffic. Yep, it’s fun letting a car that’s a half-mile away cross the intersection before you.

5) Try to turn left when you’re headed north-south. This will take you longer than the straight north-south crossing.

6) Try to turn left at an intersection that skips your left-turn signal repeatedly. Skips it seven or more times. These left-turn lanes would be a safe place to play table tennis. Get your exercise.

7) As an extra bonus. When a green light finally occurs, a tsunami of cars floods down the street, making it nearly impossible for the cars on cross streets to get through, particularly when all they have is a stop sign.

8) And any description of Powegian traffic would be woefully incomplete without mentioning the annual tearing up of its main arteries for repair or expansion of its underground pipes for new businesses. Why they don’t make an annual festival of their street tear ups is beyond me.

Poway, of course, has magnificent qualities, such as a low-crime rate, a first-class public schools, and many useful businesses. Just remember, you’ll have to drive your car to get to them.

Paul De Lancey, concerned citizen and Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.