I was driving north over the Sepulveda Pass on Sepulveda Boulevard last Wednesday afternoon when I was struck by a bizarre thought: are most Angelenos really living things?
A typical high school biology textbook will generally define a living organism as able to reproduce, grow and develop, maintain homeostasis, and respond to stimulus.
As I rounded another corner, a portable traffic control message board entered my field of vision. “LEFT LANE CLOSED AHEAD,” it shouted in blocky orange letters.
Up to this particular point, my sojourn had gone mostly unimpeded. Opting to take surface streets instead of the freeway, I had managed to avoid stop-and-go bumper-to-bumper traffic hell for the time being.
Driving through Los Angeles without having a foot hovering over the brake pedal feels liberating, and almost transgressive, so it was disheartening when I found myself slowing for a line of cars stopped at the sign’s aforementioned choke point.
As I mashed my brake pedal in anticipation of a full stop of my own, I wondered, why don’t more drivers anticipate the need to move over to the right lane? If they did, we could all avoid this foolishness and be on our way.
Then again, I thought, I’m being unfair to my fellow Los Angeles drivers. People disregard pertinent signs, weave through traffic, and have brushes with death on the roads everyday all over the country; this was--oh shit, that guy’s coming up on my rear end awfully fast. I hope he sto--
And then it hit me. (And fortunately it wasn’t the car behind me.) Most Angeleno drivers don’t respond to stimuli. Ergo, could most Angeleno drivers be considered living things according to the definition presented in my freshman biology class? Certainly not!
This logical leap, however, has frightening implications. My freshman biology class (and Bill Nye the Science Guy, for that matter) taught me that if something is not living it can either be nonliving, inanimate and never living, in other words, or dead, once living, but no longer.
Stay with me, because here’s where it gets good: viruses are small, nonliving collections of genetic material that infect host cells in order to reproduce. Zombies are dead human beings that have been reanimated and are roaming the earth once again. Today’s most cutting edge zombieology tells us that zombification takes place through infection by a highly contagious virus.
> > LA drivers are viruses? Zombies? Stop mixing your metaphors, Piper!
Without further ado, we are pleased to announce The Piper’s Army’s first public service campaign!
Don’t drive like a zombie, Los Angeles!
A typical high school biology textbook will generally define a living organism as able to reproduce, grow and develop, maintain homeostasis, and respond to stimulus.
As I rounded another corner, a portable traffic control message board entered my field of vision. “LEFT LANE CLOSED AHEAD,” it shouted in blocky orange letters.
Up to this particular point, my sojourn had gone mostly unimpeded. Opting to take surface streets instead of the freeway, I had managed to avoid stop-and-go bumper-to-bumper traffic hell for the time being.
Driving through Los Angeles without having a foot hovering over the brake pedal feels liberating, and almost transgressive, so it was disheartening when I found myself slowing for a line of cars stopped at the sign’s aforementioned choke point.
As I mashed my brake pedal in anticipation of a full stop of my own, I wondered, why don’t more drivers anticipate the need to move over to the right lane? If they did, we could all avoid this foolishness and be on our way.
Then again, I thought, I’m being unfair to my fellow Los Angeles drivers. People disregard pertinent signs, weave through traffic, and have brushes with death on the roads everyday all over the country; this was--oh shit, that guy’s coming up on my rear end awfully fast. I hope he sto--
And then it hit me. (And fortunately it wasn’t the car behind me.) Most Angeleno drivers don’t respond to stimuli. Ergo, could most Angeleno drivers be considered living things according to the definition presented in my freshman biology class? Certainly not!
This logical leap, however, has frightening implications. My freshman biology class (and Bill Nye the Science Guy, for that matter) taught me that if something is not living it can either be nonliving, inanimate and never living, in other words, or dead, once living, but no longer.
Stay with me, because here’s where it gets good: viruses are small, nonliving collections of genetic material that infect host cells in order to reproduce. Zombies are dead human beings that have been reanimated and are roaming the earth once again. Today’s most cutting edge zombieology tells us that zombification takes place through infection by a highly contagious virus.
> > LA drivers are viruses? Zombies? Stop mixing your metaphors, Piper!
* * *
Without further ado, we are pleased to announce The Piper’s Army’s first public service campaign!
Don’t drive like a zombie, Los Angeles!
