Don't Give This Project the Green Light

Do you have Red Light Projects? You know, the little things you need to get done before you get somewhere, but can't quite get done while driving, so you delegate them to red light time? Make-up is a big Red Light Project for many women (and some of you men?). There is also eating things with utensils, changing the CD, finding your favorite station, dialing your cell phone, texting (we know who we are), and probably all kinds of stuff with iPhones that I cannot begin to imagine.

My Red Light Project this morning was finding my lip gloss in my car trashcan. I realized after I left the house that I had forgotten my lip gloss. This was a problem for two reasons: 1) I, like many, am addicted to lip balm. 2) How can pull off Business Cute without lip gloss?

Luckily, I remembered I had thrown out an almost-but-not-quite-empty lip gloss in my car trash the other day, so all I had to do was unclip my car trashcan from the back of my passenger seat and rummage through it while waiting at red lights and voila! I would have shiny, pinkish, super-cute-but-natural-and-professional-looking lips for the whole day.

However, I had forgotten the universal laws of Red Light Projects:

1) If you have a Red Light Project, you will get nothing but green lights. (A Red Light Project is a guaranteed way to get somewhere faster.)

2) What few red lights you get will seem to turn green in milliseconds. (Red lights only seem long because you sit there staring at them, willing them to turn green.)

3) If you have a Red Light Project-Quest, it will be completed not during red light waits, but immediately upon parking at your destination (this was true for my Quest For Almost-Empty Lip Gloss).

4) Do not tempt the gods; terrible things can happen during and surrounding Red Light Projects. (From spilled coffee to blood on the highway, Red Light Projects are dangerous. Just say no, kids. Especially you kids. You texters. You youtubers. You iPhoners. You'll kill us all with your tiny techmology.)

Happy Valentimes Day!

(I've been saying this all day. People have either not noticed or not called me on it.)