One at a time. Let’s all take turns. You, first, then you. We’ll alternate. We can be nice and wait our turn. What’s a little backup at the stop sign? First come, first served.

All good, until we had servers. Computer servers, that is. Now, everything downloads at once and I am frantically sifting and sorting, jumping from thing to thing. Attending to each in the order they entered just isn’t working. I’m falling further and further behind. So many fall through the cracks and sift their way into the abyss. Heaven help them if they toggle past the first screen.

Oh, I miss you 4-way stop sign. So quaint. So fair. So ineffective.

Time to put in a traffic light. You there. You stop and wait. This line of cars, come on through. So much more efficient to build up a bit of momentum. Take out all those stops and starts. Handle everything going one way before switching directions. Just…one…more. Watch out for that pedestrian! Whew! Running the yellow, it’s a way of life.

But my, the impatience of the the ones waiting at the red. Their faces are grim, their hands gripping the wheel with whitening knuckles. How dare you make me wait. I have somewhere to be. I need an answer. I’ll just be a moment. I need a hearing. Hey, you signed up to have me come!

I look at those faces and the backup that builds, and the guilt starts to prickle, the sweat begins to pour. Delete. delete. Delete. There! Be free!

No! Come back. I want to know what you have to say. I want to help if I can. I subscribed because you have what I want, know what I don’t, connect me with what I am not.

Oh, red light and green light. Perhaps an officer could help direct traffic. This 4-way has now grown to 6 and soon will be 8. We’ll need an interchange. Anyone know how to construct a clover leaf? Then we can pass without stopping; we can keep on moving without yielding, without slowing. That will get us there much faster.

But where? Where, without intersections, will we interact and alternate. Where will we mix and match if we avoid each other altogether?