So one thing that still takes getting used to in Austin is the “highway” system.
There are, for all intents and purposes, four highways in Austin. There are two that go north/south, and two that go east/west. That’s about it.
And on this “highway” system, there are these weird ass “access” or “frontage” roads that run parallel to the highways, so that when you exit, you never really exit, you’re still on the fucking highway.
And one day, one of the highways got too full off traffic, instead of fixing the “highway” system, some genius decided “fuck it, let’s build a highway on top of a highway.” And that’s what they did for about six exits.
But aside from being completely asinine and nearly useless, there’s one thing on the highways here that always makes me laugh. On the highway I take to work, every 5 or so miles, there are digital signs alerting you, the driver, of potential hazards ahead. But since there are rarely potential hazards ahead, the signs usually say something like “Be Alert, Drive Safe” or some other slogan that I’m normally too drunk to pay attention to.
But every once in a while, some child will go missing and an Amber Alert will be issued, and they’ll post those on the signs. An Amber Alert, as I’m sure you know, is when some kid gets kidnapped and John Walsch from America’s Most Wanted or someone lets the world know that some kid got kidnapped. I’m not going to go off on some big tangent or anything but I will never understand why someone would want to steal a kid. Kids are worthless.
But lately, I’m noticing a trend with these signs. They’re constantly posting about some elderly person gone missing. But they’re not really “missing” in the regular sense of the word, they’ve all sort of just left.
What’s really sad is that there’s no real term for when they post one of these things. A kid goes missing, okay, that’s an Amber Alert. But when Grandma packs up her teeth and her Depends and bails on her own accord, we just post random Elderly Missing Reports. So I’ve decided to start calling these things Myrtle Alerts.
And the Myrtle alerts they show are never anywhere close to Austin, which is what I really don’t understand. They’re always like, “ELDERLY MISSING. LAST SEEN IN MONTREAL, CANADA.” And they’re always last seen driving some old ass car that you didn’t even know was still on the road. “LAST SEEN DRIVING FORD…..MODEL T.”
But aren’t Myrtle Alerts completely unnecessary to being with? I mean, isn’t it possible that Grandma was just trying to get away from her annoying family members? Let these people be! I get it. I do. Sometimes I just want to get in my car and drive far, far away. Nobody’s putting out an alert for me.
So, yeah. That’s about it.