"Why didn't you warn me?" grumbled the Cow. "Even the traffic report didn't mention that it was Sax Appeal Day!" She put on a second pair of sunglasses. She'd never seen so much pink, so much glitter and dazzle - not even at the MCQP extravaganzas. Where did they find so much pink? Surely they couldn't *all* be cyclists?
Oddly enough, the closer they approached to the University, the more constrained the behaviour of the students. The less extreme their dress. The more demographically diverse the composition of the groups. The last group the Cow encountered before hitting Campus were so well behaved their parents would have been proud. If they recognised them in their interesting attire, that is.
Despite the congestion at traffic intersections, pedestrian crossings and random geographical coordinates pulled off Google Earth, the trip in to Campus took a mere ten minutes longer than the norm. The temperature gauge threatened, but never actually moved into danger zone. But most remarkable of all was the mood.
Driving through the BeeMerc Belt everyday, Carnivorous Cow was accustomed to the aggression and intolerance that was included in the purchase of any German luxury sedan. The SUV driver whose purchase - or perusal - of a newspaper held up the traffic by longer than a microsecond after the green arrow appeared would be serenaded with hooters in surroundsound, roadraged into quivering submission... but none of that impatience greeted the extended transactions (whoever decided on R15???) holding up traffic flow. Not one foilclad lad was threatened with GBH for leaving palmprints on the impeccable paintwork. Even the newspaper vendors, joke sellers, flower merchants and beggars were treated with greater respect and tolerance. Adrenalin levels were at an alltime low as the Cow stepped out into the Beattie parking lot. The absence of sirens screaming along from the M3 was deafening. Something was clearly going _right_ in the traffic. "Perhaps," ventured Gramsci, "they should have Sax Appeal Day everyday?"