Guest Blogger: Shirley Austen, Jane's Disgruntled Cousin

Today The Crooked Clothesline welcomes, all the way from the early 19th century, Shirley Austen, a moderately well-connected lady best known for her rants in the agony columns of Regency period ladies' magazines.

The Blogger, perturbed

Reader, an alarming injustice has caused me such great upset, I am convinced you will forgive me if I forego the civility of thanking my hostess for allowing me this small trespass upon her quaint little blog, for you, too, will be left breathless with outrage when you hear of the abuse I have suffered. Earlier, this very week, I was being conveyed by means of a hired carriage and four into Chandler to partake of the diversions the city has to offer as is my wont. The day was fine and a fine match for my spirits whilst we traveled along Hunt Highway, just outside the small hamlet of San Tan Heights. However, as we approached a curve in the road, the team's gallop slowed to a trot, then to a walk, until I became aware that a great crush of stalled traffic rendered further progress an impossibility!  

There sat I, the conveyance bound within one narrow asphalt lane as by the confining stays of a corset, hemmed in on one side by a glittering snake of on-coming traffic and on the other by formidable earth-moving equipment.  Indeed, we were passing a construction zone, yet this had not previously hindered our travels to such an extent.   What, under normal circumstances, would have been but a pleasant two-minute sojourn had been turned into a most trying traverse of a full two and ten!  It was clear that something much more insidious was at work. 

I was all amazement when I discovered the cause of our unpleasant delay!

Drivers in the lane ahead of us were attempting to turn left, unaided by a turn lane, across the relentless oncoming traffic into a church parking lot!  A church!   Those who claim to be righteous were dropping their children off at a private school without a care for the great inconvenience they caused their fellow travelers.

Still today, these parents' insistence that their child attend a private school on the WRONG side of the freeway causes me great distress as I sit in stalled traffic each morn.  One is prompted to lament such disregard for the commission to "do unto others."  

A governess, Saints! A governess!  With your children being educated within your own home, we commuters may proceed into Chandler unmolested by your disagreeable left-hand turns.

Remember the words, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." You do not want to find yourself at the pearly gates, defending yourself against the accusation that you suffered your Lord and Savior to sit in traffic for twelve extra minutes each day.