The Crosswalk Told Me to Quit My Book Club: 14 Days of Outsourcing My Decisions to Municipal Infrastructure

Somewhere around day nine, I stood at the corner of 4th and Maple for eleven minutes waiting for a walk signal to tell me whether I should text my landlord about the garbage disposal. A woman asked if I was okay. I said, and I quote, "The infrastructure is deliberating." She crossed against the light. Coward.

Here's how I got here. I, like every American, have too many decisions and too little conviction. What to eat. What to wear. Whether to respond to that email from my aunt or let it fossilize. So I did what any reasonable person would do: I outsourced everything to the crosswalk buttons in my neighborhood, because they are free, everywhere, and already pretending to care about my wellbeing.

The Rules (Which I Invented, and Which Are Therefore Sacred)

The system was simple, then it wasn't.

• Press the button. Ask your question aloud. Yes, aloud. The universe needs to hear it, and so does the guy waiting for the bus.
• Instant walk signal = yes. The cosmos has approved your request. Proceed.
• Long wait = not yet. The universe is buffering. Respect the buffer.
• Button doesn't respond at all = the question was never worth asking. Devastating. Usually accurate.
• Signal changes while you're mid-sentence = the answer is complicated. File under "later."

A note for the pedants in the back: yes, I know most crosswalk buttons in American cities are "placebo buttons" — installed decades ago and disconnected when computerized signals took over. Scientists have literally studied this. The buttons often do nothing. I know this. I chose to believe anyway, which, per the article on cursed images this site already published, is simply how brains work now.

Week One: The Honeymoon Phase

Day one went suspiciously well. "Should I get the breakfast burrito?" Instant signal. Burrito acquired. It was excellent. I began to suspect I had discovered something.

Day two: "Should I rewatch The Office tonight?" Instant signal. The cosmos has taste, apparently, but not range.

Then came day four. "Should I finally clean my oven?" I pressed the button and waited. And waited. Three full light cycles. Cars passed. A pigeon judged me. I wrote in my field notes: "The universe needs more time. The oven remains a tomorrow problem." This is the danger of inventing your own rules — they always rule in your favor.

Week Two: The Infrastructure Has Opinions

By week two, the neighbors had noticed. A man named Daryl who walks his terrier at 7 a.m. every day started pausing to watch me conduct my rituals. On day ten he asked, "You waiting for someone?" I explained the experiment. He nodded slowly, the way you nod at a person you're going to describe to your wife later.

But the crosswalk kept delivering. "Should I skip my book club?" — instant signal, and honestly? The book was bad, the wine was worse, and deep down I already knew. "Should I wear the corduroys?" — long wait. The universe said no, and my shins thank it.

The big one came on day twelve. "Should I email Marcus back about the weekend plans?" The signal turned immediately. Yes. Unambiguous. Municipal infrastructure, disconnected since roughly 1987, told me to text Marcus back. I did. We're going to a Cubs game. The system works.

Field Notes From the Crosswalks

Assorted observations, transcribed from a notes app titled "TRAFFIC TRUTH":

• Buttons near schools give faster answers. Coincidence? Urgency? The universe respects a school zone.
• The button outside the dentist's office gave me a long wait for "Should I floss more?" which I'm choosing to read as "no."
• One button made the walk sign appear before I even finished pressing it. That's not a signal, that's a scream.
• A delivery driver watched me ask a lamppost-adjacent button whether I should order pizza. The light said yes. He said "same" and drove off.

The Conclusion I Was Legally Required to Draw

Two weeks of surrendering my free will to traffic infrastructure taught me three things. One: most decisions don't matter, which is why a disconnected metal box can handle them. Two: the waiting is the point — the crosswalk's real wisdom isn't the answer, it's forcing you to stand still for ninety seconds and realize you didn't care that much anyway. Three: Daryl's terrier is named Biscuit and he is a good boy, which I learned during the eleven-minute deliberation about my landlord.

Would I recommend this? The signal says yes. I pressed the button before writing this sentence, and I don't make the rules.

Didapo does not recommend interacting with traffic infrastructure, real or placebo. The oven was eventually cleaned. Marcus never replied about the Cubs game.